by Arlos » Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:09 pm
I would disagree. I think North Korea is a MUCH bigger threat than Iran. North Korea HAS nukes and quite literally doesn't give a fuck what anyone else thinks, except maybe China. It also is a completely totalitarian society run by the whim of 1 person, with no sort of check or balance to his whims.
Iran, on the other hand, actually has a political system, even if it's different than ours. Also, it knows quite well that Israel has nukes itself, and if Iran ever a) actually developed one, and b) popped one off, that Israel would turn Iran into so much radioactive glass, with a good chance the US would lob a few in there for fun as well.
To be quite serious, while obviously Iran's support of terror is a problem, I don't share the worry that they will either start firing off WMDs or distribute them either. First, their population was the victim of WMDs themselves, so I think some of the popular will for their use, barring invasion or something similar, just wouldn't be there. Also, as I said, they KNOW that if a terrorist cell uses anything remotely nuclear that Israel and the US is just going to assume it was them, no matter how much they protest, and will react accordingly. They're not so crazy as to risk utter annihilation. Not NOW anyway. Early 80s, maybe a different story. But not now.
North Korea, however, has hundreds of thousands or more of its people starving to death because of bad harvests, and still turns away food shipments for no apparent reason, and still dedicates vast amounts of its GDP to military spending rather than actually feed its people. They manifestly don't give a flying fuck, as the people have no say whatsoever in the government, so popular will is nonexistent. The only country with ANY influence on North Korea is China, and even then it's not much. Plus we know for damn sure they HAVE nukes already, so...
Yeah, if anyone starts flinging nukes around, it'll be North Korea. 2nd place in the probability chart is Pakistan and India, if there's serious enough provocation over Kashmir. They were at the brink of it just a few years ago, and the Mumbai attack ratcheted the tension level way back up again.
-Arlos