On the morning of April 2, 2013, we woke up to two news items about the development of nuclear weapons by totalitarian states. The first item (in The Wall Street Journal) announced that the Iranians are putting their nuclear activities on hold so as not to exacerbate the crisis with the West before the national elections in June. The second (from the various news agencies) stated that the North Koreans are restarting their nuclear reactors and uranium enrichment sites, for the sake of peace, of course. Is there any connection between these two events? I’m not sure there isn’t.
Just a reminder: The first and so far the only time that Iran took any serious steps back from its nuclear program for military purposes occurred in 2003, when the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. The presence of American military might within mortar range of its borders convinced Iran not only to postpone, not only to slow down, but to go so far as to suspend the activities of its “weapons group” entirely. This was considered enough progress for the annual American National Intelligence Survey published a year later to put a damper on Israeli warnings by releasing tepid report claiming that the Iranians were generations away from having nuclear capabilities. This gave the ayatollahs’ regime the vital time-out it needed to restore past glory and come within arm’s length of military grade nuclear capabilities.
