[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] All the world's a stage for North Korea

[Bill Totten]

by Eric Margolis

Toronto Sun (May 31 2009)


PARIS - Confrontations between the US, its allies and Stalinist North
Korea have become highly stylized kabuki theatre in which fist waving
and snarling replaces actual violence.

The US, which has thousands of nuclear weapons around the globe and
28,500 troops in South Korea, warns that North Korea's handful of crude
nuclear devices are a world menace. North Korea threatens, if attacked,
to turn South Korea's capital, Seoul, into "a sea of fire".

After much angry posturing, the US, Japan and South Korea paid off
North Korea's "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il, to be good.

But after North Korea's second small nuclear test this week, there is
real danger this usually harmless kabuki could turn lethal.

North Korea's few nukes are not a danger - yet. The North has 800
inaccurate medium-range missiles aimed at South Korea and Japan but
they lack nuclear warheads. North Korea is not believed to have yet
mastered miniaturizing or hardening nuclear warheads for delivery by
missile.

Pyongyang's blood-curdling threats notwithstanding, its infant nuclear
force is primarily defensive. North Koreans have had to literally eat
grass to pay for their nukes.

When eventually deployed, Kim's nuclear-armed missiles will deter
potential US nuclear strikes on North Korea by threatening
counterstrikes on South Korea, Japan and US bases on Okinawa and Guam.
North Korea would be unlikely to initiate a nuclear war that would
result in its immediate obliteration by US retaliation and
vapourization of the Kim dynasty.

New danger

But after this week's nuclear test, a new danger has emerged. The US
has renewed threats to stop and search North Korean freighters on the
high seas that might be carrying "weapons of mass destruction",
missiles or military components to the Middle East. South Korea and
Japan will do the same, but only in their coastal waters. North Korea
warns, quite correctly, that such a high seas arrest would be an act of
war.

The plot thickens. Israel worries that North Korea, desperate for hard
cash, will sell more missiles, technology, spare parts and in the
future, nuclear warheads to the Arabs or Iran.

So Israel has put intense pressure on the Obama administration to stop
any flow of North Korean weapons to the Middle East. The White House
responded by threats of a maritime blockade of North Korea.

North Korea says it will retaliate militarily for any high seas
seizures, either against South Korean naval forces in the Sea of Japan
or by attacking US ships and spy aircraft that shadow North Korea's
coast.

If this happens, the US likely would respond with missile strikes and
air attacks. North Korea would then riposte with barrages of heavy
artillery and long-range rocket batteries along the DMZ against South
Korea's capital, a mere forty kilometers (25 miles) distant. Attacks on
US bases in South Korea by North Korea's large numbers of Scud missiles
could follow.

The Obama administration is playing with fire by threatening an act of
war against North Korea, which has so many American troops in its gun
sights. Some Koreans, both North and South, see Kim as the authentic
Korean leader for defying the mighty US and refusing to give in to its
threats.

Reunification

Like his late father, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il has repeatedly vowed to
reunite the Korean Peninsula before he dies. Time is running out for
the ailing Kim. His pledge should not be taken lightly.

The Dear Leader faces internal challenges over plans to name one of his
three sons as North Korea's next dynastic leader. But he also knows the
US is most unlikely to invade North Korea, which has a very tough, 1.1
million man army that so far appears loyal to the regime.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and a maritime confrontation will
be avoided. But the Obama administration, which is now involved in two
wars and has provoked a volcanic upheaval in Pakistan, should proceed
with caution. America's world power has already reached its limits.

eric.margolis at sunmedia.ca 

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/05/31/9628201-sun.html


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