EDITORIAL - The threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction has the United States on the brink of war. American Intelligence indicates that an autocratic rogue state may now be developing the technology to process the spent fuel rods of nuclear reactors into plutonium in sufficient quantities to produce crude atomic weapons. Efforts to pursue sanctions against the state in the Security Council have been stalled by the treat of a veto from one of the Permanent Members.

International Atomic Energy inspectors have encountered a patter of intimidation, concealment of evidence, and evasiveness at every stage of their investigations. Now, as tensions rise, these inspectors are threatened with expulsion. The United States prepares to take unilateral action to halt this threat to its national security.

Sound familiar? Well, it should because the story is ten years old. I am not talking about Iraq, but the United States? 1994 standoff with North Korea. Just change the names around a bit. Clinton instead of Bush, Chinese obstructionists instead of French, and Saddam Hussein instead of Kim Il Sung. Every aspect of these two crises is almost identical except in its result: Iraq has been freed of a murderous dictator, and North Korea is now a nuclear power. Starting to smell something? That odor is the putrid reek of ?enlightened? Liberal meddling in international affairs.

In 1994, former President Jimmy Carter, still sore from being beaten like Mike Tyson?s sparing partner by Ronald Reagan, makes a barely authorized trip to North Korea with a CNN news team. He then takes it upon himself to negotiate a deal with the North Koreans to end the standoff. War is averted! The only problem is that in the civilized world, ?negotiations? usually mean both parties get something out of the deal. Not so with Carter?s. Jimmy decides the best way to make peace is to give the North Koreans everything they want; oil and fuel shipments, new nuclear reactors so they could free up their old ones to make more plutonium, and other humanitarian aid for the North Korean Government to divert to their army and away from their starving people. He even agrees to allow the North Koreans to keep and reprocess their spent reactor fuel rods! (F.Y.I. This is how plutonium is made! I guess Carter, being a Liberal, feels that all forms of recycling are good, even if they are used to make weapons that very soon will threaten our West Coast.)

What did America get in return? Nothing. Now, amazingly, we find out that North Korea continued their fifty-year tradition of lying by covertly developing nuclear weapons while being supported by the American taxpayers. Nice work Jimmy!

Moving ahead 10 years to the Iraq War. Democrats have been attacking President Bush on his handling of the Iraqi Conflict due to his lack of the same ?enlightened? Liberal views that allowed North Korea to deceive us.

History teaches us the mistakes at Munich before World War II and the failures of appeasement policies. Jimmy Carter, and the rest of his gushing supporters evidently neglected this lesson and made the world a more dangerous place. But what excuse does John Kerry have after seeing the results of Carter?s folly? He says we should have waited for diplomacy to work. We waited over ten years! Perhaps Kerry feels that we could have waited until Saddam died and cut a better deal with his son Uday (a renowned moderate peacemaker). More likely, he believes that we should followed Jimmy?s example, abandoned all of our values, and then voila! Instant peace! Well, at least for another five years or so.

Kerry and Dean say we should have pursued the ?approval? of the U.N. Do these guys live in a box? That was the first thing Bush did. And, just as in 1994, the Security Council stymied all efforts to stop a tyrant. Despite growing evidence that French and Russian officials may have been bribed by Hussein for their support, the Liberals still feel that Bush should have begged for the right to defend American citizens. When will the Left realize that the only time Europe and the United Nations will support American military action is when their interests are at stake.

Finally, the brewing issue is that no W.M.D. where found in Iraq. But what would America have found if we had attacked North Korea in 1994? Nothing. Just a few outdated reactors that make any testing reactor at a major American University look like the Death Star by comparison. The issue in 1994 is the same as 2004. It is not what is there now, but what could be there in ten years. We know what North Korea did with their time, what would have Saddam done with his? Thankfully, we will never know.

But still, where are the weapons or at least the programs to develop them? Well, gosh, I do not know, maybe Hussein hid them in the months we spent being slapped around in the U.N.? They could be in Syria, one of the former Soviet Republics (what do you think all that money to Russia was buying?), or cut up and buried in the desert. If this sounds ridiculous, let me remind you in the first Gulf War, Saddam flew most of his Air Force into Iran (an unfriendly nation) to protect them from the Americans. Why would anyone think he would do anything different with W.M.D.?

The central theme to these two crises is the presumption by the Liberals that they can trust autocratic regimes if they sit down and try to reason with them. Liberals are consumed by guilt regarding the ?repression? (i.e. success) of Western Civilization. So, if a tyrannical head of a rogue state is bent on confrontation, then it must be America?s fault. Following that theory, the Left feels that if we allow the autocrats to what they want with our full support, rather than censure, they will magically become global good citizens. The hard reality is these ?peace at any cost? appeasements have only led to far bloodier wars after the dictatorial regimes have time to fully consolidate their strength.

Oppressors understand only one language; deception, and the coin of their realm is brute force. Liberals can dream about running American geopolitical policy like some kind of New Age encounter group, but America will no longer have to worry about what Saddam Hussein will do. The Bush Administration now has to negotiate with North Korea not because our foreign policy is duplicitous, but since the Left?s 1994 ?solution?, these madmen can now destroy Tokyo and in short order perhaps L.A. How enlightened! Jimmy Carter saved thousands of North Korean lives by delaying a possible war for a few years! And all Liberals had to do was put millions of American lives at stake.