(Weekly Standard) Anthony Ruggiero - North Korea authored the playbook now being used by Iran to fleece the U.S. and our allies. And if the U.S. fails to neutralize the North Korean threat, Iran will notice how the U.S. buckles in the face of nuclear pressure. Iran has already learned a number of damaging lessons from North Korea. First, cheating on nuclear deals is permitted. President Bill Clinton announced the 1994 Agreed Framework as a deal that would "freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program," but Pyongyang violated the agreement when it started a covert uranium enrichment program. Washington then negotiated the 2005 Joint Statement, but the Kim regime built a nuclear reactor in Syria during the negotiations, and the Bush administration removed North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list in 2008. The writer, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, was a nonproliferation adviser to the U.S. government.
2017-09-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive