As the US and Asian neighbors of North Korea mull a united response to block the communist nation's nuclear program following a recent test, Israel is bracing for the fallout.
The chief concern is that Pyongyang's defiance of the international community will serve as a case-study for how Iran also might side-step diplomacy, acquire nuclear weapons, and fuel a regional arms race. If North Korea can get away with becoming a nuclear nation with little punishment and despite US diplomatic efforts, Israeli analysts say that may embolden Iran to flout international pressure, too."If the Americans can't show credibility on North Korea, then they won't be able to go far. It's a thermometer,"
says Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University."The US has been threatening to take action against North Korea since the 1990s and the North Korea has been able to buy time. The Israeli concern is that's exactly what will happen with Iran."
N. KOREAN TIES TO IRAN
North Korea's history of supplying missile equipment to Iran, Syria, and Egypt stretches back at least a decade.
According to a technical report published earlier this month by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore Postol, Iran's ballistic missile program "relies very heavily" on North Korean components, which it began importing as early as the 1980s. Three of its four known missile systems have flight characteristics "essentially identical" to those of North Korean missiles, the report says.
US intelligence officials believe North Korea and Syria, which have a longstanding military relationship, began cooperating on nuclear issues as early as 1997...
[So that UN resolutions plan - working out well?]
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