Thursday, October 11, 2007

Korean peace?

The prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula look good, at least on paper. For the first time, N. Korea, i.e. dictator Kim Jong-Il, has agreed under the auspices of the 6-nation discussions (US, China, Japan, Russia, N. and S. Korea) to stop development of nuclear weapons and rockets in a verifiable manner. In exchange for this they will receive munificent supplies of goods, food and electrical energy.
Also, Kim Jong-Il met last week with the President of S. Korea for the second time, and they signed a protocol envisaging reunification and peaceful relations in the future. It is likely that a conference will be called of all the signatories to the Korean War ceasefire in order to ratify a peaceful conclusion of the hostilities of 50 years ago. This is a major step in the right direction.
This may be another example, after that of Libya, in which another member of Pres. Bush's so-called "axis of evil" will be brought under control. Three out of five ain't bad, with Taliban Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq out of the running. But there are still a lot of problems.
First, as to N. Korea itself, its attempt to transfer its nuclear facilities to Syria were apparently interdicted by the IAF attack in northeastern Syria a few weeks ago, when nuclear facilties and materials, as well as some N. Korean personnel, were destroyed. It was not only the apparent accuracy of this attack, and the phenomenal means of avoiding the Iranian-supplied Russian defensive radar shield, but the spot-on intelligence, that was impressive. It apparently convinced the highest levels of the US Govt. of the credibility of the information.
However that might affect the Korean situation, the fact remains that two members of the original axis of evil, namely Syria and Iran, remain very much a threat to Western civilization.

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