[Wall Street Journal] John R. Bolton - The six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program were set to resume on Sept. 27 in Beijing. But the entire diplomatic minuet has been reduced almost to insignificance by news of the apparently successful Israeli air attack on Syria. With its objection to the raid, North Korea may have tipped its hand. For years, North Korea has been an aggressive proliferator of ballistic-missile technology, especially to the Middle East. Iran's increasing hegemony over Syria makes Syrian-North Korean cooperation in nuclear matters unlikely without its consent. Where are Syria's ballistic missiles - and its weapons of mass destruction - aimed? With American forces at risk in Iraq, no increase in the threats they face is acceptable, especially given Syria's record on Iraq to date. Syria remains at war with Israel and with Lebanon's Cedar Revolution. No one concerned about Israel's security or Lebanon's democracy should countenance giving North Korea a pass on the terrorism issue. The writer, a former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
2007-09-28 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive