February 18, 2003

The Second Front

Why is North Korea threatening to abandon the truce agreement that ended hostilities in the Korean War? Imagine, if you will, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, North Korea's Kim Jong Il., and China's Jiang Zemin - three unelected dictators who all view the U.S. as an adversary - devising strategy. Farfetched? No. China was North Korea's ally in the Korean War. China rebuilt Iraq's military telecommunications infrastructure after the Gulf War, installing a difficult-to-destroy underground fiber optic network. And Chinese weaponry and even some dead Chinese who fought alongside the Taliban were found in Afghanistan after the battle of Tora Bora. It's not hard to see China as the go-between helping Iraq by encouraging North Korea to ratchet up the nuclear threat, rattle sabers and make a resumption of the Korean War seem almost inevitable. Such posturing serves three strategic purposes.

1. It causes some politicians in the West - both in the U.S. and Europe - to suggest that focusing on Iraq is misguided and the North Korea is the real threat, leading to a weakened diplomatic response and the ongoing inability of the U.N. to put a little backbone into its resolutions. 2. It causes the always weak-kneed French - who have a veto on the U.N. Security Council - to become even more spineless. 3. It presents the U.S. president and the U.S. military with the need to divert some attention and resources away from Iraq in order to deter North Korea.

Michael Ledeen and others have written often about how a U.S. invasion of Iraq may well be met by a counterattack by Hezbollah - which is backed by the regimes in Syria and Iran, the latter of which has close ties to China. In that scenario, Hezbollah would attack Israel and, perhaps, U.S. forces in western Iraq. Iran may get involved too - they've recently tested ballistic missiles they secured from (drum roll please) North Korea. Things may get very dicey very fast. But, then, that' s what you'd expect if you confront the Axis of Evil and its accomplices. The alternative, to do nothing, would simply invite more aggression, more threat, more danger - and a wider, tougher, bloodier war a few years down the road. The world learned that in the 1930s when it allowed Hitler to re-militarize the Rhineland, in violation of treaty agreements. Western Europe could have strangled Hitler in his crib then, but chose instead to accept his promises of peace.

The War on Terror is a global battle, we were told not long after Sept. 11. Indeed it is, and we can fight it now. Or later.