The news media and the politicians amaze me with their debate on the issues. Everything that happens seems to be someone's "fault" in their view. They try to establish whether North Korea's nuclear program is the fault of Clinton or Bush. It never seems to occur to them that North Korea has their own agenda, and intends to develop nuclear weapons no matter what we do. I think Iran has a similar attitude.

I think that neither of those countries can be deterred without strong action that is unlikely to be approved by the UN. Neither political party in the US will be able to undertake the action that is required to stop North Korea or Iran. I'm afraid that we will do nothing until one of those countries uses nuclear weapons in a military strike.

It is fortunate, and not really surprising that the North Korean test fizzled. It is hard to make a good nuclear weapon, particularly a plutonium device, which I have heard is what they were doing. Hopefully we are still a few years away from Armageddon, which I fear is coming.