The Associated Press is reporting that South Korean, American, and European monitoring stations have detected “artificial seismic waves” coming from the Punggye-ri test site in North Korea, indicating that the country has conducted another nuclear bomb test. North Korea has a rudimentary nuclear arsenal and is developing ballistic missiles to deliver nuclear warheads against South Korea and Japan.
The United States is deploying missile defense systems to counter such a move.
Besides the threat of a nuclear strike being conducted by one of the most dangerous rogue regimes on the planet, the likely nuclear test will probably become an issue in the current presidential campaign. In the 1990s, then-President Bill Clinton signed an agreement with the North Korean regime that was supposed to stop it from getting a nuclear arsenal. North Korea ignored the agreement and developed nuclear weapons anyway.
Fast forward a couple of decades later, and President Barack Obama signed a similar agreement with another rogue regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran, that is touted as stopping it from getting a nuclear arsenal.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still supports the Iran nuclear weapons agreement despite the fact that most analysts believe that it does little if any to impede that country’s atomic bomb program.
Iran had made no secret of its desire to destroy the State of Israel with a nuclear strike. An Iranian nuclear arsenal, coupled with ballistic missiles that Iran is busily developing, would also pose a threat to Europe and ultimately the United States. The thought of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of religious zealots poses a clear and present danger to the peace of the world.
Nevertheless, the fear that the agreement is a modern-day Munich has not deterred the Obama administration from making what some estimate are secret payments in cash and gold to Iran as what it calls sanctions relief measures.
The word that most outside observers use is appeasement. The administration is also ignoring provocative actions being conducted by Iran Revolutionary Guard speedboats, approaching United States Naval vessels in the Persian Gulf in what seems to be practice for attack runs.