The time for talks may quickly be coming to an end, although a military option is not really viable at this point. If the track record of UN resolutions with Iraq is any indication, besides the more recent and continuing lack of success with either North Korea or Iran, words alone are clearly not working. From the Sunday Times: North Korea’s plutonium pile attracts Iran:

The risk [that North Korea is selling plutonium to Iran] is viewed with such gravity in Washington that the United States has launched a concerted diplomatic and covert effort to prevent it, according to diplomats based in Pyongyang and Beijing.

The belief that Iran and North Korea are talking about plutonium stems from a recently reported offer of oil and gas from Tehran in exchange for nuclear technology.

The discovery by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2004 that North Korea had sold an estimated 1.7 tons of [yellowcake] uranium to Libya established a precedent for the sale and showed how hard it is to stop, diplomats say.

… last year that while engaging in disarmament talks, North Korea had made enough plutonium to amass a stockpile of about 43 kilograms, perhaps as much as 53kg. For the first time since the nuclear crisis began in 1994 it has sufficient fissile material to sell some to its ally while retaining enough for its own purposes.

Unfortunately the world will have to decide if proliferation is important enough to act or not, and if the situation is ignored a choice has still been made.

Read the rest here. H/T to OneFreeKorea.
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