North Korea versus Saddam

Oliver Kamm notes that the US was right to go after Saddam.

First, the geo-political position of Saddam’s tyranny was different from North Korea’s: we have more potential economic leverage over North Korea. Secondly, Saddam was an active supporter of terrorism, both Islamist and secular, making his removal an especially urgent task. Thirdly, the US and UK did not launch a pre-emptive war against Saddam: we had been at war with him for 12 years owing to his continued defiance of the ceasefire agreement that concluded the first Gulf War. Fourthly, and most urgent, we were justified in overthrowing Saddam in order to prevent him from becoming the next Kim Jong-il – no longer a tyrant of scarcely imaginable depravity, but a tyrant of scarcely imaginable depravity with a nuclear capability.

And he notes this on the current North Korean situation.

As the experience of sanctions on Iraq showed, undermining a barbarous regime will be immensely difficult, owing to its indifference to civilian life. But where the UN failed so grievously even in effectively containing Saddam, the interests of the permanent members of the Security Council are so obviously geared to the removal of Kim Jong-il's tyranny that there may be grounds for hope. The most urgent bilateral agreement is not between North Korea and the US but between China and the US. China and Russia must be brought into an arrangement of curbing all transport routes for the export of North Korea's nuclear materials and technology. China must understand that the alternative to its exerting pressure on North Korea will be a nuclear-armed Japan.

China doesn't seem to want to play along and I therefore don't share Kamm's hopes. Further, I don't see how anyone is going to stop Japan from going nuclear now; the biggest deterrent will be the Japanese themselves.