North Korea Claims To Have Conducted A Nuclear Test. And More? Report N. Korea Also Launched A Short Range Missile

Awesome.

The country's official Korean Central News Agency reported that the test was carried out Monday.

Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the South Korean president, says that a nuclear test may have been carried out in the North.

Seismologists from the U.S., South Korea and Japan reported earthquakes in an northeastern area, where North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006.

A 4.7-magnitude earthquake was registered in northeastern North Korea at 9:54 a.m. (0054 GMT), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

And then this...

Just hours later, North Korea appears to have test-fired a short-range missile, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Pyongyang has so far not commented on Yonhap's report.

More: Just for fun, I checked to see if N. Korea was part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They were, until they go caught in 2003 and then they bailed out. It's almost like treaties don't, you know, stop countries from doing whatever they want.

BTW, what did the N. Koreans say back in the day?

The official Korean Central News Agency said that, although Pyongyang was pulling out of the NPT, it had no intention of producing nuclear weapons.

"Our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity," Friday's statement said.

Just like the Iranians, sans the Jew baiting of course.

Tomorrow's Conventional Wisdom Today...This failure of diplomacy clearly shows the need for more diplomacy. The Six Party Talks have done nothing to stop N. Korea's nuclear program. Obviously this demonstrates the importance of redoubling efforts to conduct more Six Party Talks.

Just remember...missile defense remains unproven. However, when it comes to diplomacy, especially 'smart' and 'tough' diplomacy, everyday is a new day.

Ah, the building CW (at least according to CNNI reporters and analysts)... North Korea only reacts to carrots, not sticks, so start handing out the carrots! Again, this unfortunately runs afoul of all experience.

Hey, guess who published a piece called "Get Ready for Another North Korean Nuke Test" just 5 days ago? John "The Mustache" Bolton, that's who.

If the next nuclear explosion doesn't derail the six-party talks, Kim will rightly conclude that he faces no real danger of ever having to dismantle his weapons program. North Korea is a mysterious place, but there is no mystery about its foreign-policy tactics: They work. The real mystery is why our administrations -- Republican and Democratic -- haven't learned that their quasi-religious faith in the six-party talks is misplaced.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently rejected "linkage" in Russia policy as "old thinking." Disagreement in one area, she argued, shouldn't prevent working on "something else that is of overwhelming importance." Whatever the merits of linkage vis-à-vis Russia, de-linking a second North Korean nuclear test from the six-party talks simply hands Pyongyang permission to proceed.

Even worse, Iran and other aspiring nuclear proliferators will draw precisely the same conclusion: Negotiations like the six-party talks are a charade and reflect a continuing collapse of American resolve. U.S. acquiescence in a second North Korean nuclear test will likely mean that Tehran will adopt Pyongyang's successful strategy.

So, we've got that to look forward to.

posted by DrewM. at 10:39 PM

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