N. Korea Co-opts the Bush Doctrine

While the Bush administration fiddles with Iraq, North Korea asserts the right to a pre-emptive attack on the US. "The United States says that after Iraq, we are next," declares Ri Pyong-gap, the deputy director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, "but we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US."

For background on how the Bush administration has been marginalizing the North Korean threat because of their preoccupation with Iraq, see the recent Washington Post article by Walter Pincus and Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker.