Distances that North Korean missiles would have to travel to strike U.S. targets (Washington Post graphic/Congressional Research Service)

>> North Korea states ‘nuclear war is unavoidable’ as it declares first target will be Japan (UK Express)

The news that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency now believes North Korea may be able to miniaturize its nuclear warheads and fit them on ballistic missiles means the crisis on the Korean Peninsula involves not just one but two dangerous scenarios.

First, that Kim Jung Un — the Pyongyang man-child dictator — will trigger a nuclear war in East Asia, either purposefully or accidentally. The last Korean war cost more than 2.5 million lives. The next one could cost many multiples of that. Seoul alone is a city of some 12 million people.

Second, that Benjamin Netanyahu — the Israeli Prime Minister — will feel compelled to launch a massive preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities sooner rather than later. Why? Because the rapid advancement of North Korea in building nuclear warheads capable of fitting on ballistic missiles means Iran is not far behind from accomplishing the same if North Korea is selling their research to the mullahs in Tehran. This could accelerate the Israeli calculus for taking decisive action since neither the Obama administration nor other world powers appear to be taking decisive steps of their own to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat.

This is what I call “linkage.”

While on the surface North Korea is creating a crisis that is unique to the Pacific theater, the sober truth is that the crisis actually has direct and immediate implications for the Middle East. Israeli leaders are monitoring the North Korean developments very closely. They are also watching equally closely how the White House is handling the Korean situation.

At this point, Netanyahu and his advisors are likely drawing the following conclusions:

1. Pyongyang either has or nearly has not just an operational nuclear warhead, but one that can be fitted on a ballistic missile;
2. Therefore, because Iran and North Korea are working so closely together, it must be assumed that Iran is even closer to having deliverable nuclear missiles than previously believed;
3. The U.S. intends to take no decisive action to stop Pyongyang from becoming a nuclear weapons power;
4. Therefore, it can be assumed that the U.S. is not going to take decisive action to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power;
5. In the cases of both North Korea and Iran, the Obama administration talks tough, but carries a little stick — the U.S. merely intends to contain and deter these two countries from using nuclear weapons, not really prevent them from building them;
6. Thus, Israel is on its own, and may need to move hard and fast to keep Iran from crossing the red line, after which Israel won’t have an effective military option.

“The results of a classified Defense Intelligence Agency report indicate that ‘North Korea now has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles,'” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “That was the bombshell out of a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday. It came when Rep. Doug Lamborn (R) of Colorado began quoting from what he said was an unclassified version of the DIA report, which has not yet been made public.”

“A new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with ‘moderate confidence,’ that North Korea has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile,” reports the New York Times. “The assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been distributed to senior administration officials and members of Congress, cautions that the weapon’s ‘reliability will be low,’ apparently a reference to the North’s difficulty in developing accurate missiles or, perhaps, to the huge technical challenges of designing a warhead that can survive the rigors of flight and detonate on a specific target. The assessment’s existence was disclosed Thursday by Representative Doug Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, three hours into a budget hearing of the House Armed Services Committee with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. General Dempsey declined to comment on the assessment because of classification issues. But late Thursday, the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., released a statement saying that the assessment did not represent a consensus of the nation’s intelligence community and that ‘North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile.’”

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• To learn more about Damascus Countdown, please click here.
• To learn more about The Joshua Fund, please click here — please help TJF pray for peace even as we prepare for the possibility of war. We’re currently providing food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief aid for the poor and needy among Jews and Arabs in Israel. We’re also stockpiling supplies for the next war, even as we teach the Scriptures, hold pastors training conferences, and care for persecuted believers throughout the epicenter. Will you stand with us at this critical hour?
• Follow Joel on Twitter — @joelcrosenberg

When you write a novel, you just hope that your parents can find it at a bookstore within 100 miles of their house, not that it will become a national best-seller.

So thanks so much to all who are continuing to purchase and read the new novel, and those who are blogging about it, Tweeting about it, endorsing it, and reviewing it on Facebook, Amazon, BN, and in other places.

Thanks to all those who have interviewed me about the book and its parallels to what’s really happening in Iran, Syria, Israel and the broader Middle East. Thanks to all the brick & mortar bookstores, on-line and e-book retailers, and audio book retailers who have backed the novel so enthusiastically.

We just found out that Damascus Countdown will remain on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list for the fifth straight week. It debuted at #7. Currently it will be on what’s known as the “extended list” at #29.

Lynn and I are very grateful for the enthusiastic response to this novel. God bless you.

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• To learn more about Damascus Countdown — currently on the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestseller lists — please click here.
• To learn more about The Joshua Fund, please click here
• Come with Joel and The Joshua Fund for a tour of Israel and the 2013 Epicenter Conference this summer
• Follow Joel on Twitter — @joelcrosenberg

“North Korea has positioned two mobile missile launchers on the country’s east coast, [say] senior Pentagon officials — movement that comes as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned North Korea is ‘skating very close to a dangerous line,'” reports Fox News. “The senior Pentagon official told Fox News that a test of the Musudan missiles could occur ‘at any time.'”

In light of this, I was interviewed on the Fox News Channel on the latest developments in the North Korean nuclear crisis and how the crisis is linked to the rising tensions between Israel and Iran. Before the show, I was asked to email the producer a summary of my analysis. Here’s what I sent:

• In 2008, I published a thriller called, Dead Heat. The premise: a lunatic dictator running North Korea launches a preemptive nuclear strike at four American cities (New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Seattle). Now the actual lunatic leader of North Korea really is threatening a preemptive nuclear strike on the U.S. 
• A very dangerous moment — two untested leaders facing off against each other on the Korean Peninsula.
• Kim Jung Un, the dictator in Pyongyang, has only been on the job about 18 months. Is he really in control, or are others making military decisions? Could he/they miscalculate?
• Park Geun-hye is the newly elected President of South Korea. First woman elected in the country’s history. Only been on the job two months. Daughter of the authoritarian leader of South Korea from the 1960s. Campaigned on making peace with the North. Does she know what she’s doing? Does she have what it takes in a crisis like this?
• Then there is President Obama who has not faced a crisis this serious — akin in some ways to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• The President is right to be sending military assets to the Korean Peninsula, including B-52s, Stealth fighters, warships, missile defense systems, and so forth – presumably sending a message that we are ready for war. But is he?
• The President made a serious mistake to cancel our test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile – we need to pursue a police of peace through strength, yet canceling a test like that is a sign of weakness, not strength.
• The rest of the world is watching — what are they learning about how President Obama handles crises?
• What is Iran learning? — They are working hand-in-glove with North Korea on nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles. They may actually be using Pyongyang as a research & development lab to perfect miniaturized nuclear warheads that Iran could use against Israel.
• What is Israel learning? — That the U.S. isn’t really serious about stopping a rogue power from getting The Bomb.
• The crisis in North Korea makes it more likely Netanyahu will launch a preemptive military strike against Iran, possibly this year.

Previous columns I’ve written on the North Korean threat and linkage with Iran:

• North Korea warns foreign embassies to evacuate by April 10th. War coming, or is it another bluff?
• Threat in Pacific: North Korea approves nuclear strike on U.S. Warns “moment of explosion is approaching fast.”
• Obama sends B-52s, Stealth fighters, warships to send message to North Korea. But what’s the message for Iran?
• North Korean nuclear cooperation with Iran “a match made in Hell”
• Like a scene ripped from “Dead Heat,” North Korea threatens nuclear strike on U.S.

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• To learn more about Damascus Countdown — currently on the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestseller lists — please click here.
• To learn more about The Joshua Fund, please click here
• Come with Joel and The Joshua Fund for a tour of Israel and the 2013 Epicenter Conference this summer
• Follow Joel on Twitter — @joelcrosenberg

Speaking on “Damascus Countdown” at The Heritage Foundation on April 9, 2013.

At noon today, I was honored to address The Heritage Foundation’s weekly “Blogger Briefing”, along with Senator Jim DeMint, the new president of Heritage. In addition to the bloggers in attendance, the event was webcast live to bloggers throughout the U.S. and around the world.

I told the group that if I could sum up my remarks in one word, it would be this: “Miscalculation.”

The world is a dangerous place when American presidents miscalculate. I noted that when I arrived in Washington at began working at Heritage in 1990 (my first real job after graduating from Syracuse University), Saddam Hussein was massing military forces on the border of Kuwait and threatening to invade. I was struck at the time by how many Middle East “experts” said Saddam would never invade. They said he was just “saber-rattling” and driving up the price of oil for his own ends. But to the lay person, it certainly looked like Saddam was really going to invade Kuwait, and on August 2, 1990, he did just that. Officials throughout Washington were stunned. They didn’t believe what Saddam had been saying for months. They didn’t understand the nature and threat of the evil Saddam presented, and thus they were blindsided by it.

This is one of the reasons I write fiction: to imagine worst-case scenarios, and to help other people — including political, military, intelligence, business and religious leaders — to imagine how quickly the world can spin out of control when leaders misunderstand evil and miscalculate.

At the invitation of Rob Bluey, Heritage’s director of digital media, I spoke for about ten minutes on my background, why I began writing novels, and how I seek to use fiction to imagine these worst-case scenarios. I gave a quick background on three of my novels as examples — The Last Jihad (about radical Muslims hijacking a plane and flying a kamikaze attack into an American city, written before September 11th, 2001); Dead Heat (about a preemptive nuclear strike by North Korea on four American cities and on South Korea, published in 2008); and Damascus Countdown, now in its fourth week on the New York Times best-seller list.

Then, for the next thirty minutes or so, I took questions from the bloggers. It was a very interesting conversation about geopolitics, global economics, and the art of writing fiction. One blogger asked me about my faith and how Bible prophecy factors into world events and my books. I noted that Bible prophecy is not a topic that often comes up at Washington’s premier “think tank,” but I was happy to address it. [Note: unfortunately, the video doesn’t capture all of the Q&A portion.]

>> Here is the link to the webcast of the event — Sen. DeMint leads off, and my remarks begin around 17:30 into the program.

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• To learn more about Damascus Countdown — currently on the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestseller lists — please click here.
• To learn more about The Joshua Fund, please click here
• Come with Joel and The Joshua Fund for a tour of Israel and the 2013 Epicenter Conference this summer
• Follow Joel on Twitter — @joelcrosenberg

UPDATED: A great lady will be missed.

Margaret Thatcher, the middle class daughter of a grocer, rose through the male-dominated political world in the U.K. to become the first — and only woman — Prime Minister in the history of Great Britain. By the force of her will and the conviction of her deeply-held principles about the virtue of freedom and liberty, Thatcher emerged as one of the most important and influential world leaders of the 20th century.

Like Churchill, Thatcher understood the nature and threat of evil and bravely led the British people during times of great peril. The U.S.-British alliance was at its peak strength and impact when Reagan and Thatcher led the Free World to bring down the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union.

Thatcher was the first serving British premier to visit Israel. This was no insignificant decision given that the fact that the British empire controlled Palestine during the “Mandate” period and the British Foreign Office was deeply committed to the Arab side and quite hostile to the Jews who wanted to return to and reestablish their Biblical homeland after the Holocaust.

“Margaret Thatcher who died of a stroke at 87 on Monday, was the first serving British prime minister ever to visit Israel,” reported the Israeli daily, Haaretz, today. “During her landmark visit in 1986, she was asked why Queen Elizabeth has never found the time to tour the Holy Land, to which she answered, ‘but I’m here.’ Of course, when one reviews the ‘firsts’ and other achievements by Thatcher over her long career, the fact that she was the first British prime minister to stare down the Arabists of the Foreign Office and visit Jerusalem is way down on the list.”

Her list of accomplishments is long and sweeping and while she made many allies and fans — winning three terms as PM — she also had many critics and detractors.

My wife, Lynn, and I had the honor of attending a black tie dinner for Lady Thatcher that was organized by The Heritage Foundation in September 1991, when I worked for Heritage. We had long been admirers of the “Iron Lady” but this was the first time we had every seen her and heard her speak in person. We were deeply impressed by her passion for setting people free from the tyranny of oppressive, suffocating government taxation and regulation. [To read her speech, please click here.]

A few years later, when I was working as a senior advisor for Steve Forbes, I had the opportunity to learn even more about the woman who saved Great Britain from socialism, at least for a season. Steve was close to Thatcher. They spoke frequently on key policy issues. Their families vacationed together. Thatcher even appeared with Steve in Iowa at a political fund-raiser. She didn’t exactly endorse Steve’s campaign for the presidency, but she came as close as she felt comfortable as a retired foreign leader. They were, after all, kindred spirits on the virtues of cutting taxes and encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation.

“Thatcher knew the deadweight on the economy of excessive taxation,” Steve noted in a column about her today. “She cut the top income tax rate from 98% to 40%. She cut the corporate income tax rate from 52% to 35%.”

“Along with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher was a giant of our era and, indeed, of history,” Steve wrote. “These three leaders brought about the fall of Soviet communism and the resurgence of political and economic liberty around the world.  Like Reagan, Thatcher was one of those rare individuals who was both a movement leader and an effective political leader.  It is one thing to have firm ideas, quite another to have the skills to bring them into being and for them to endure after you leave office.  The current economic crisis has put Margaret Thatcher’s ideas and ideals under siege even though this disaster resulted from ignoring her and Reagan’s fundamental free market principles.”

WHAT THE WORLD IS SAYING:

• Reactions of world leaders to the death of Thatcher
• Israeli leaders praise “staunch friend” Thatcher
• George Will: Margaret Thatcher’s vigorous virtues
• Steve Forbes: The Amazing Margaret Thatcher: We Desperately Need More Leaders Like Her
• WSJ: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Dies
• NYT: Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Who Reforged Britain, Dies at 87

Strategic Affairs, Intelligence and International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz. (Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi)

>> Israel stops to remember 6 million killed in Shoah (Times of Israel)

>> Netanyahu: “We won’t put our fate in the hands of others, even the best of our friends” (Jerusalem Post)

With the nuclear crisis intensifying in the Pacific, and talks with Iran again going nowhere, senior Israeli officials are increasingly concerned the world powers are not committed to taking decisive action to neutralizing Iran’s nuclear threat before it’s too late. Now a senior Israeli Cabinet official is saying publicly and on the record that a final deadline for Iran should be measured in weeks, not months. Could such a warning mean that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his inner circle are nearing a decision on military action?

“Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz called on world powers on Sunday to set a deadline for military action of weeks to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program after talks ended without progress at the weekend,” Reuters reports. “World powers and Iran failed again to end a deadlock in the decade-old dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program during the meeting in Kazakhstan, prolonging a standoff that could yet spiral into a new Middle East war.”

“Sanctions are not enough and the talks are not enough,” Steinitz said. “The time has come to place before the Iranians a military threat or a form of red line, an unequivocal red line by the entire world, by the United States and the West…in order to get results.”

“Steinitz, a close confidant of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, told Army Radio action should be taken within ‘a few weeks, a month’ if Iran did not stop enriching uranium, although he did not elaborate,” Reuters noted.

Developing…..

• Iran must halt enrichment within weeks, says strategic affairs minister (Israel Hayom)
• “Deadline needed for military action on Iran” (Reuters/Jerusalem Post)
• Nuclear talks with Iran deadlocked (CNN)
• 30% increase in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2012 (Times of Israel)

>> To learn more about Damascus Countdown — a New York Times bestselling political thriller about an Israeli first strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the retaliation by Iran and Syria — please click here.

NK leader Kim Jong Un. (AP photo)

>> Damascus Countdown tour in Florida this week

UPDATED: Is Kim Jung Un, the 30-year old despotic leader of North Korea, about to launch a nuclear war against the United States and South Korea? Experts keep saying “probably not,” that he is just trying to show the world he is tough, but what if they are wrong? What if the leaders in Pyongyang blunder into a war? Or what if they really believe they can wage such a war and somehow “win”?

The rhetoric is red hot. But the military moves are aggressive and preparatory for war. And now foreign embassies in Pyongyang are being encouraged by Un’s government to evacuate by April 10th. Could that suggest war is coming in five days? Or is it merely yet another in a history of high-profile bluffs?

On March 10, 2011, “Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified that North Korea ‘may now have several plutonium-based nuclear warheads that it can deliver by ballistic missiles and aircraft as well as unconventional means,” noted Bruce Klingner, former chief of the CIA’s Korea branch and now a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. At the time, Klingner noted that “it is uncertain whether Lt. General Burgess’s statement is based on new intelligence reporting or a higher level of confidence that DIA has in the new analytic assessment. His remarks were disturbing because most experts to date have held that North Korea has not yet mastered the requirements to miniaturize any nuclear warhead sufficiently to put it on a missile.”

Two years and a third nuclear warhead test later, it appears North Korea may now have built and deployed short-range nuclear missiles.

Dr. David Albright, a leading expert on the North Korean nuclear weapons program and President of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), wrote on February 13th — just after Pyongyang’s third nuclear test — that “ISIS assesses that North Korea has the capability to mount a warhead on the Nodong missile” which has a range of about 800 miles. In other words, Albright and his fellow experts have concluded North Korea does have the ability to fire nuclear missiles that could potentially obliterate major cities in South Korea and Japan, though they cannot say with certainty that such nuclear warhead-tipped missiles have been deployed. At this point, ISIS has concluded that North Korea probably cannot launch a nuclear warhead on an ICBM yet, but that they are steadily approaching that goal.

“The United States would ‘not be surprised’ if North Korea launched a missile, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Friday,” reports CNN. “‘We have seen them launch missiles in the past and the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly condemned them as violations of the North’s obligations under numerous Security Council resolutions.'”

“North Korea has advised foreign diplomats to consider evacuating their embassies in Pyongyang in light of increasing tensions in the region, Russian and British diplomats said Friday,” reports the Washington Post. “Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters traveling with him in Uzbekistan on Friday afternoon that Moscow was seeking more details about the North Korean statement before making a decision about whether to evacuate.”

“The British Foreign Office said its embassy ‘received a communication from the North Korean government this morning saying that the North Korean government would be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10,'” notes the Post. “The development comes at the end of a week of bellicose threats by the North Koreans against South Korea and the United States. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing intelligence sources in South Korea, reported Friday that the North had moved intermediate-range rocket launchers to its eastern coast, putting Guam potentially within range of a strike, Reuters news service said.”

“Two things appear to be going on,” notes Dr. Kim Holmes, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, now a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a highly-respected think tank in Washington, D.C. “First, the young Mr. Kim is trying to prove himself, not only to us, but possibly to his own people, by playing tough. Second, and more worrisome, the leadership may be emboldened by the belief that they’re very close to possessing a nuclear missile capable of reaching the United States. The situation is ripe for miscalculation. The new South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, whose mother was killed by a North Korean agent, has made it clear she will not roll over like other South Korean leaders. Moreover, there is a new U.S.-South Korean agreement that could result in the United States more forcefully backing the South militarily short of all-out war. Another North Korean attack could result in the U.S. forces joining South Korea in some form of military retaliation. Either way, we should not think this is a case of parties on the peninsula crying wolf. North Korea has shown time and time again it will strike with violence. It may well be on the verge of doing so again.”

• North Korea tells Brit diplomats to get out — then sets chilling April 10 deadline (The Sun, UK)
• April 4: North Korea warns military cleared to attack U.S. with nuclear weapons (AP)
• March 31: North Korea: Nuclear weapons are a ‘treasure’ (AP)
• March 11: North Korea declares 1953 armistice invalid (CNN)
• The posturing boy despot who could blunder into apocalypse (Daily Mail, UK)
• North Korea crisis biggest nuclear threat since Cuba, says Fidel Castro (Daily Mail, UK)
• North Korea moves missiles, South Korean markets roiled (Reuters)
• North Korea moves missile to east as nuclear crisis escalates (NBC News)
• North Korea bars southern workers from industrial complex (Washington Post)
• Dr. Kim Holmes: Decoding North Korea’s Nuclear Rhetoric (The Heritage Foundation)
• Profile of NK leader Kim Jung Un (BBC)
• Dr. Graham Allison: North Korea’s Lesson: Nukes for Sale (New York Times, Feb 12, 2013) — “The most dangerous message North Korea sent Tuesday with its third nuclear weapon test is: nukes are for sale….As the former secretary of defense Robert M. Gates put it, history shows that the North Koreans will ‘sell anything they have to anybody who has the cash to buy it.’ In intelligence circles, North Korea is known as ‘Missiles ‘R’ Us,’ having sold and delivered missiles to Iran, Syria and Pakistan, among others. Who could be interested in buying a weapon for several hundred millions of dollars? Iran is currently investing billions of dollars annually in its nuclear quest. While Al Qaeda’s core is greatly diminished and its resources depleted, the man who succeeded Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been seeking nuclear weapons for more than a decade. And then there are Israel’s enemies, including wealthy individuals in some Arab countries, who might buy a bomb for the militant groups Hezbollah or Hamas. President Obama has rightly identified nuclear terrorism as ‘the single biggest threat to U.S. security.’ If terrorists explode a single nuclear bomb in an American city in the near future, there is a serious possibility that the core of the weapon will have come from North Korea.”
• February 2013: Park Geun-hye becomes South Korea’s first female president (CNN)
• March 28, 2013: South Korean president stumbles in first month on job (AP)

>> Read DEAD HEAT — a 2008 political thriller about a North Korea preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S. 

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• To learn more about Damascus Countdown — currently on the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestseller lists — please click here.
• To learn more about The Joshua Fund, please click here
• Come with Joel and The Joshua Fund for a tour of Israel and the 2013 Epicenter Conference this summer
• Follow Joel on Twitter — @joelcrosenberg

“North Korea dramatically escalated its warlike rhetoric on Thursday, warning that it had authorised plans for nuclear strikes on targets in the United States,” reports Agence France Presse.

“The moment of explosion is approaching fast,’ the North Korean military said, warning that war could break out ‘today or tomorrow.'”

AFP reported that “Pyongyang’s latest pronouncement came as Washington scrambled to reinforce its Pacific missile defences, preparing to send ground-based interceptors to Guam and dispatching two Aegis class destroyers to the region. Tension was also high on the North’s heavily fortified border with South Korea, after Kim Jong-Un’s isolated regime barred South Koreans from entering a Seoul-funded joint industrial park on its side of the frontier. In a statement published by the state KCNA news agency, the Korean People’s Army general staff warned Washington that US threats would be ‘smashed by… cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means.'”

“The merciless operation of our revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified,” the statement said.

Last month, AFP noted, “North Korea threatened a ‘pre-emptive’ nuclear strike against the United States, and last week its supreme army command ordered strategic rocket units to combat status.”

KEY STORIES TO TRACK:

• South Korea: North Korea moved missile to east coast (AP)
• North Korea threats: US to move missile defences to Guam (BBC)
• Kim Jong-un: Can US trust North Korea leader to act rationally? (CSM)

>> Read DEAD HEAT — a 2008 political thriller about a North Korea preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S. 

Former CIA Director James Woolsey

On Monday, I met with James Woolsey, the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I’ve long been impressed with Woolsey’s analysis of global trends, but had not previously had the honor of meeting him. We spent about an hour in his Washington, D.C. office, discussing the growing threats posed by Iran, Syria and North Korea and how the U.S. should be handling them. I gave him a signed copy of Damascus Countdown, and we spent some time discussing the book and then various “worst case scenarios” I may write about in future novels.

Most of our conversation was off-the-record. But I took careful notes and Woolsey graciously agreed to allow me to make some of his comments public. His analysis was particularly interesting to me in light of yesterday’s headline in the Times of Israel: “UN nuke chief fears Iran secretly working on a bomb: Intelligence shows Tehran was and is involved in nuclear weapons project, says International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano.” 

Woolsey was appointed CIA Director by President Clinton and served from 1993 to 1995. Previously he had served as Under Secretary of the Navy and as Ambassador and U.S. Representative to the negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Since leaving the CIA, Woolsey has continued to write and speak extensively on national security and energy security issues. A self-described “Scoop Jackson” Democrat — more conservative on foreign policy and military issues than traditional liberals — he endorsed Senator John McCain’s presidential bid in 2008 and served as a foreign policy advisor to McCain.

Excerpts of our conversation:

Q: Do you think Israel will use military force, and if so, how soon?

James Woolsey: The problem is that the Israeli air force is one of the two best in the world, but they are not big. We have the capacity to launch a sustained bombing campaign — multiple sorties over many days or weeks — and really damage or completely destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. But a brief Israeli air strike won’t suffice. It’s not like hitting the Osirik reactor in Iraq in 1981. It’s not like the hitting the Syrian reactor that the North Koreans built in 2007.

This is what the U.S. should be doing:

• Put four or five carriers in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean region.
• Send B-52, B-1, and B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia
• Stockpile our most effective conventional earth-penetrating weapons in the Western Pacific or Indian Ocean (Diego Garcia, Guam)
• Start running military exercises in the Indian Ocean
• Don’t say anything publicly, officially about what we’re doing — but let it be known through a well-timed leak that what these forces are doing is preparing for is a sustained bombing campaign to destroy everything they can reach that is related to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, everything they’ve got. Let it be known that, at much as possible, we won’t target the Iranian people, their civilian infrastructure, or their regular army. But we are going to destroy anything and everything related to the Revolutionary Guards, starting with the nuclear facilities, but also the factories they own, and their headquarters, and their bases, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
• And then wait for a little bit and see if the Iranian regime gives some ground.

 I laid this out in an op-ed with Bud McFarlane a couple of years ago. Of course, maybe it’s too late for that now. It’s definitely getting late.

Q: What if President Obama won’t do this? He’s sending B-52s and Stealth bombers and others military assets to South Korea and the Pacific to send a strong message to North Korea. But he’s doing just the opposite with regards to Iran — pulling carrier battle groups out of the Persian Gulf area, and so forth. So this brings us back to Israel. Are you saying the Israelis don’t have the military capabilities to neutralize the Iran nuclear threat?

Woolsey: I’m concerned because I don’t think Israel can take out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities using air strikes — some yes, but all? I don’t think so.

Q: Then what does Netanyahu do? I ask that because my impression is that Netanyahu brought in Ehud Barak, a long-time political rival, to serve as his Defense Minister for the past four years precisely to lead the IDF into devising and practicing and be preparing to execute a decisive plan to stop Iran from getting the Bomb. And my impression is that Barak feels like he accomplished that objective and stepped down feeling confident that he gave Netanyahu a viable plan, should it become necessary to use.

Woolsey: You may be right. Israel’s air assets are limited in numbers, but Netanyahu may have to attack anyway. He may have no other choice. He can’t just sit there and do nothing. The one thing that gives me a little bit of optimism is that Bibi and Barak are the two most experienced men in the art of unconventional warfare serving in the leadership of any country anywhere in the world. No other country has one Bibi, or one Barak — much less both. These are men who understand how to defeat an enemy using every trick in the book. And they may have something up their sleeve, a plan that doesn’t simply involve attacking from the air. These two guys are used to thinking about the art of war the way Sun Tzu told us to. I don’t think they’d limit themselves to an airstrike or two.

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• To learn more about Damascus Countdown — currently on the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestseller lists — please click here.
• To learn more about The Joshua Fund, please click here
• Come with Joel and The Joshua Fund for a tour of Israel and the 2013 Epicenter Conference this summer
• Follow Joel on Twitter — @joelcrosenberg

This week, I’ll be in Florida to discuss Damascus Countdown, the latest developments in the Middle East, and Bible prophecy, and how we can pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the persecuted Church in the epicenter at this critical time.

Here’s the schedule (not including media interviews and private meetings):

* On Wednesday evening from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, I’ll be speaking at Sanibel Community Church on Sanibel Island. The topic: “What Does Bible Prophecy Say About The Future of The Epicenter?” We’ll also have lots of Q&A.

* On Thursday morning at 7:00am, I’ll be speaking at a breakfast at the First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs.

* On Saturday night at 6:00pm, I’ll be speaking at First Baptist Church in Naples.

* On Sunday morning at 9:30am and again at 11:00am, I’ll also be speaking at First Baptist Church in Naples.

If you’re anywhere nearby, I hope you’ll join us. It would be an honor to meet you and to answer your questions.

LATEST HEADLINES:

• Israel hits Syrian outpost in response to cross-border fire (Times of Israel)
• 2 Gaza rockets explode near Sderot; none hurt (Ynet News)
• IDF targets terror sites in response to rocket fire (IDF)
• Kerry to visit Israel in hopes of restarting talks (Jerusalem Post)
• U.S. General Says North Korea Situation Is ‘Volatile’ and  ‘Dangerous’ (ABC News)
• North Korea analyst: ‘One of the most dangerous moments’ (Los Angeles Times)