Posted on: Tuesday, May 17, 2005

EDITORIAL
Nuclear threat can't be solved with force

It is entirely possible that a belligerent U.S. foreign policy that reserves the right to launch "preemptive strikes" against potential threats abroad is the best way to achieve lasting national security.

But it is also possible, probably more so, that such a policy is enticing, rather than reducing, danger.

Consider Iran and North Korea.

Both nations are developing a capacity for nuclear weapons. North Korea openly says that is its goal and claims already to have nuclear weapons that pose a direct threat to its Asian neighbors and even the United States (particularly Alaska and Hawai'i).

Iran says its nuclear interests are peaceful; it simply wants to develop the capacity for nuclear power. But most analysts say Iran is interested in at least having the capability of nuclear weapons for its own security and to increase its power within the Middle East.

With North Korea, the United States has taken the position that diplomacy is the best way out of this tangle, but diplomacy only on our terms. Prideful North Korea says it wants direct talks with the United States, while the Bush administration insists on talks through the so-called six-nation process involving South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, the United States and North Korea.

It is tempting to think the United States can simply warn North Korea and Iran that, if they do not behave, they invite the possibility of punishing "surgical" air strikes by our powerful military force.

But that's a dead-end deal. Short of totally wiping out the governments of the two nations and their entire command-and-control operation, air strikes invite the potential of devastating retaliation.

It's time for a new approach, involving direct assurances of no hostile intent against the two "Axis of Evil" nations, combined with generous and focused energy and food aid that meet the individual needs of those countries.

Compromise is the far better route. Consider the alternative.