I would disagree with this article.
The reason we worry less about N. Korea obtaining nuclear weapons is because China and Japan have even less interest in seeing a nuclear power on their border than does the US in seeing S. Korea threatened. And N. Korea is not likely to go very far in upsetting China, who enjoys their current ability to dominate Pyongyang.
So there is a multi-lateral approach to containing Kim Il Jong and his regime. Furthermore, the only threat that regime has made has been against the South, with an aspiration of coming out on top in their decades long civil war.
Iran is different in that there is a perception that the demographics are working in the favor of the US with regard to regime change there. But were they to obtain nuclear weapons (or announce publicly that they have them), it could be far different scenario because it would enhance Saddam's claim to need them.
Saddam is different because the only nations "containing" him are the US, Turkey, and Britain, all aligned with the same political power bloc (and sheltering several corrupt monarchies at the same time) . And Iraq lies in the most economically and politically sensitive region of the globe, due to those oil reserves. And since he nows sees how he can use Islamic fundamentalism to attack the US indirectly (I believe he had a hand in 9/11), he knows he has a weapon with which he can strike the heart of the US. And if he's able to carry out these attacks via "false flag" operations, maintaining plausible deniability, AND obtains the security of nuclear weapons to hide his regime behind, he'll be able to exert considerable power in the region.
And since Iraq borders so many different important countries in the region, it can serve as an important base of operations for terrorist networks under the protection of Saddam, especially when they are being hunted down elsewhere in the world. Of course, he places his nation at risk of fundamentalist influence on Iraq's streets, but it's unlikely that these terrorists will "bite the hand that feeds them", and the "suicide" of Abu Nidal could be serving as a warning to terrorists that if their own interests don't jibe with his, he has no problem with eliminating them.
The other nations, including Syria, all have supported terrorist groups, but the psychological make-up of Saddam, as evidenced by his willingness to take extreme, if poorly calculated, chances, makes him more of a loose cannon on deck.
Hawk |
