North Korea's nuclear policy is not irrational at all (Guardian)

[struggle4progress]

We are heading towards another pre-emptive war and Japanese nuclear weapons unless pressure for disarmament revives

Dan Plesch
Tuesday October 10, 2006
The Guardian

North Korea's nuclear test is only the latest failure of the west's proliferation policy. And it demonstrates the need to return to the proven methods of multilateral disarmament. Far from being crazy, the North Korean policy is quite rational. Faced with a US government that believes the communist regime should be removed from the map, the North Koreans pressed ahead with building a deterrent. George Bush stopped the oil supplies to North Korea that had been part of a framework to end its nuclear programme previously agreed with Bill Clinton. Bush had already threatened pre-emptive war - Iraq-style - against a regime he dubbed as belonging to the axis of evil.

The background to North Korea's test is that, since the end of the cold war, the nuclear states have tried to impose a double standard, hanging on to nuclear weapons for themselves and their friends while denying them to others. Like alcoholics condemning teenage drinking, the nuclear powers have made the spread of nuclear weapons the terror of our age, distracting attention from their own behaviour. Western leaders refuse to accept that our own actions encourage others to follow suit ...

The domino effect is all too obvious. Britain wants nuclear weapons so long as the French do. India said it would build one if there were no multilateral disarmament talks. Pakistan followed rapidly. In Iran and the Arab world Israel's bomb had always been an incentive to join in. But for my Iranian friends, waking up to a Pakistani bomb can be compared to living in a non-nuclear Britain and waking up to find Belgium had tested a nuclear weapon.

East Asia is unlikely to be different. In 2002 Japan's then chief cabinet secretary, Yasuo Fukuda, told reporters that "depending on the world situation, circumstances and public opinion could require Japan to possess nuclear weapons". The deputy cabinet secretary at the time, Shinzo Abe - now Japan's prime minister - said afterwards that it would be acceptable for Japan to develop small, strategic nuclear weapons ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1891568,00.html