Reply #9: There's an interest in being able to say it failed.

[Igel]

If it failed, then the problem with N. Korea can be dismissed, or nearly so. They may be working on a bomb, but it's not really that serious--nothing a resolution or a bit of jammering around a table can't resolve, if done just right. But if N. Korea tested a prototype and it worked, then it's a bigger problem and something might need to be done--they've done something that everybody has to at least take a moral stand against.

I do a similar kind of thing when our old car makes a funny sound. If we're well ahead of the bills for the last month or two, funny sounds are a serious matter. If we're behind or barely keeping up--or there's something expensive that we want to buy--then funny sounds are trivial.