(Tablet) Lee Smith - If North Korea has the bomb, then for all practical purposes Iran does, too. Consider the history of extensive North Korean-Iranian cooperation on a host of military and defense issues, including ballistic missiles and nuclear development. "The North Koreans have been cooperating with Iran for about a decade on nuclear and missile issues, and the Iranians have several full-time weapons engineers on site in North Korea," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. Cooperation includes North Korean sales of technology and arms, like the BM-25, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching Western Europe. Iran's Shahab 3 missile is based on North Korea's Nodong-1 and is able to reach Israel. As one senior U.S. official told the New York Times, "the North Koreans are testing for two countries." If Tehran has paid for access to North Korea's program, it will also pay for a bomb. At this point, it could be only a matter of haggling over the price. The widespread belief is that the North Koreans tested an enriched uranium device this time, while the first two tests used plutonium. Some experts suspect that if the bomb detonated Tuesday was using enriched uranium, this is yet another piece of evidence that Iran is likely "using North Korea as a backdoor plan for their own nuclear program." The writer is a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2013-02-15 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive