"The `evil axis' hits back"
The liberal Toronto Star editorialized (3/5):
"As U.S. President George Bush gets ready to crush Saddam
Hussein, the rest of the 'axis of evil' are feeling
Saddam's pain.
But far from being cowed, North Korea
and Iran seem determined to deny Bush the chance to do
to them what he's about to do to Saddam.
It's getting prickly out there.
In Korea, the mercurial Kim Jong-il has countered a threat with a crisis. He has an illegal nuclear bomb or two, and is eyeing an assembly line....
Iran, too, is a worry. Tehran has a murky
'peaceful' nuclear program that's getting murkier.
It has rebuffed IAEA requests for better access to nuclear
sites....
All the talk in Washington of 'taking out'
Saddam's regime before it can arm itself with horror
weapons has emboldened Korea, and tempted Iran, to
shield themselves from attack by acquiring the very
nukes Saddam lacks.
Washington's aggressive doctrine of pre-emptively' smashing regimes that pose no threat but in theory might risks inviting an arms race that
can only damage U.S. interests.
Having loosed this stampede, Bush must now try to rein it in.
The campaign against terror remains America's chief priority.
But getting North Korea to abandon its nukes and persuading Iran not to go down the nuclear road ought to be high on the presidential agenda.
Higher than regime change in Iraq.
Iraq is a problem.
But Korea is a crisis. And Iran is fast becoming one.
However Bush may loathe Pyongyang and Tehran, he needs
to cool his moralizing, rein in his hawkish advisers
and deploy skilled diplomats to engage these regimes
in a dialogue to head off catastrophe. Toppling Saddam
is a potentially fatal distraction." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2003/03/03OTTAWA659.html
