non-ecumenical ramblings

Just finished reading last month's Atlantic Monthly article on Iran (abstract only) & this month's Foreign Affairs's article on N. Korea to discern Bush's likely approach to the two countries during his second term. Part of the interest is based on Seymour Hersh's article in the recent New Yorker that kicked up a mini-ruckus & induced fears in a liberal acquaintance. To summarize the articles:

Iran:

• Iran will likely have a nuclear weapon in 3 years.
• Israel's saber rattling is to convince us to do something, but their military options are very poor (long distance to Iran would require refueling for round trip & Israel's choices of fly over countries are Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Iraq - we would have to give clearance in that case).
• Concluding statement "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work."

N. Korea

• N. Korea was not "secretly developing a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade" contrary to the Bush administration's claims on October 4, 2002.
• They "clearly did violate that accord by pursuing uranium-enrichment efforts...and thus, technically, violated the 1994 Agreed Framework..." but those efforts were for LEU (low-enriched uranium).
• They do not have nuclear weapons, and lack the finances and no-how to make them + the containment by the multi-nationals has been effective in stopping N. Korea from obtaining needed equipment.
• The charges by the Bush administration were made to scuttle the normalization of relations with S. Korea & Japan (Koizumi had been planning the trip for 9 months, but only told the US 3 weeks before he visited "when Koizumi presented the upcoming visit as a fait accompli"), or rather to stop others from driving US options with Korea(s).

Of the two articles, the Foreign Affairs is clearly the superior, so I'll recommend it to the folks that are receiving this posting. The authour is the "Chairman of the Task Force on U.S. Korea Policy at the Center for International Peace...and the authour of Korean Endgame." The article filled in the gaps in my understanding nicely: even though N. Korea and the 6-party talks have been in the news, I never understood the actual charges levied, or how seriously to take the threat of N. Korea having 'the bomb'.

Given that I've heard minimal saber rattling from Bush on Iran/N. Korea - almost a passive approach in both cases - I'll conclude that we will not attack either country, Iran will have the bomb within ~5 years, and they will mimic Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity.