North Korea could be desperate to save their regime:
Could North Korean leader Kim Jong Il be using the provocation of a nuclear test simply as a bargaining chip to get the aid he needs to placate his people and stay in power? Pyongyang's recent nuclear test, labeled by the world as a provocation, could actually be a desperate cry for help.
Could be. So let's strangle them. Yes, I know that China has far more trade with North Korea than we or our allies have, but this might be enough to push them over the edge. And even if it isn't, shouldn't China bear the full cost of propping up that monster regime since they are the big obstacles to really strangling North Korea?
In Iran, Ahmadinejad refuses to abandon his nuclear ambitions:
"Mounting threats and pressures against Iran's peaceful nuclear activities won't cause even one iota of hesitation in the will of the Iranian nation to continue this path."
We should probably take him at his word. And so regime change is the only real answer to the problem. Military strikes alone are only a temporary measure that needs to have regime change follow within years.
Ex-Axis of Evil member Iraq has been put into the good guy column but bad guys continue to murder and terrorize:
The death toll in a surge of sectarian killings in Balad swelled to at least 91 on Monday, police and army officials said, while bombings in and near Baghdad killed as many as up to 10 people. Eleven more bodies were found dumped in the capital.
Sunnis still want power and Shias are increasingly capable of inflicting short-term and vicious justice on the former tormenters--regardless of individual guilt.
With Saddam still on trial despite his obvious and extensive guilt, and promising to win power, Shias wouldn't be so sour on official justice:
"The hour of liberation is at hand, God willing, but remember that your near-term goal is confined to freeing your country from the forces of occupation and their followers and not to be preoccupied in settling scores," Saddam writes in the Arabic-language letter, which is dated Sunday and signed by "Saddam Hussein al-Majid, President and commander-in-chief of the holy warrior armed forces."
Perhaps if Saddam would be finally executed, his very survival wouldn't cause Baathists to hope for victory and Shias to fear his return somehow. No justice, no peace, as the bumper sticker says.
And in Afghanistan, which would have been in the Axis of Evil speech had we failed to destroy their regime in 2001, we face problems with jihadis parked in Pakistan who use that territory as a sanctuary:
Speaking at the opening of a new intelligence-gathering centre on Monday, General James Jones notably expressed concern about the porous Afghan-Pakistan border cross which Taliban fighters enter and leave violence-wracked Afghanistan.
We've killed lots of the enemy and they've done relatively little to show for their deaths, but it does keep economic and political development from going forward fully.
Finally, Axis of El Vil and Axis of Evil wannabe Venezuela pines to run interference for their new mullah friends:
A Security Council seat could give Venezuela concrete opportunities to challenge U.S. foreign policy goals. Chavez has promised to stand by Iran in its efforts to avoid U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, defending the Islamic country against allegations that it want to build an atomic bomb.
We haven't enough troubles and this loon is strutting about.
It is a long and varied war.
