North Korea Helped Syria With Nuclear Reactor
US intelligence is now releasing a video that sheds some light on the murkiness surrounding the Israeli destruction of a complex in Syria last year. For months there has been speculation as to just what Israel had destroyed with most of the speculation being that it was a nuclear reactor being built with assistance from North Korean technicians. Now, given the move to a new agreement with North Korea on its own program, it appears the US government is trying to air out all of what it knows about North Korea's extracurricular activities. Officials are making clear the complex was not for power generation, but could produce plutonium for weaponization.
I suspect we are doing this to pressure the North Koreans into moving forward with new agreements we have been negotiating. President Bush would like to secure a deal before exiting the White House and he seems to be trying to box Kim jong-Il into a bit of corner by saying cut a deal now, it'll never get easier than what we are offering at the moment. Given the regime's past actions, I remain skeptical they will adhere to any deal. However, given that the only alternative to "permanently" end the North Korean program would be military action (that would be far messier than anything we have seen in Iraq), at the moment, this may be the best we're going to get.
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