The Big Hole Incident U-Store-It Angle

So, an alternative explanation (from this article) for nuclear materials in Syria is that Syria agreed to hold North Korean nuclear materials that North Korea is being asked to abandon as a condition of aid.

Put the material in Syria for storage while the inspectors roam North Korea and pronounce the country clean. North Korea then collects the checks from America, Japan, and South Korea. The last step is to bring the nuclear materials back from Syria to start up what the current talks are designed to halt--North Korean atomic weapons.

Since North Korea is broke, the payment to Syria could be a portion of the stored material. North Korea would keep far more than if they left it at home and were forced to let it all be removed as a price of aid from America, Japan, and South Korea.

I don't get the impression that Syria has a credible nuclear program that could have nuclear weapons from indigenous resources any time in the next couple decades, but such materials could help in long-range plans to go nuclear.

So while the target in Syria that Israel struck on September 6th seems by circumstantial evidence to have been nuclear in nature, I don't think the primary reason for the material was to support a Syrian nuclear project.

Either the nuclear material was bound for Iran, or--perhaps more likely--Syria was storing North Korean nuclear material for the Pillsbury Nuke Boy.

I've long worried that Iran could have spread their nuclear program beyond Iran to shield crucial components from an American air campaign to knock out their nuclear infrastructure. There is no reason north Korea couldn't be trying the same thing.

And this explanation would explain why North Korea seems suddenly willing to negotiate away their nuclear ambitions for food and oil aid. When Pyongyang long insisted that it needs nukes to prevent America from attacking them, why would North Korea abandon that long-held belief? And no, starving North Koreans isn't the answer. That doesn't bother the elites.

The better explanation is that the North Korean elites think they have found a way to have their yellow cake and eat, too.

One wonders where the North Koreans got the idea that Syria would store nuclear materials for them? Did Saddam try this out first back before the invasion in 2003?

Israel seems to have knocked out an important site in this game. So where else on the planet might North Korea try to hide nuclear weapons program components?

Still, at least we have one question answered: Syria has taken the coveted third slot in the Axis of Evil.