North Korea admits that it has pursued a nuclear weapons program in violation of its 1994 treaty. Nobody who has paid attention is surprised that North Korea has pursued nuclear weapons. It is a bit surprising that the North Korean government has admitted it. That seems out of character. They hint that they have even more devastating power ready to use as well.

Nobody who pays attention to these things today is surprised that the cheerleader's reaction is to blame Bill Clinton. Anything that might reflect badly on the Bush administration is Bill Clinton's fault, after all. It is a bit surprising that they would reach all the way back and blame Jimmy Carter, skipping over RR and GHWB on whose watch the North Koreans developed their program in the first place.

Those are interesting historical debates but the real question is what does the only President we have plan to do about it now?

He asked for and received Congressional authorization to go to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein might acquire nuclear capability; could have biological and chemical weapons; and has invaded his neighbors in the past. What is he going to do about North Korea?

Well, we have 50,000 combat troops along Dwight Eisenhower's demilitarized zone. The have been arrayed there for half a century since the war that was ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. While the President spins to look at the other pole of the Axis of Evil we need to be considering, as did FDR in 1940, whether the United States is ready to fight a two ocean war.

We weren't then and we aren't now. Can we stay out of conflict long enough to prepare for it? This time of the year in 1940 we were just a little over a year out of the battle and when it came we were barely able to hold Japan off long enough to mobilize - and GWB is no FDR.

There is a difference between Iraq and the North Koreans. The North Koreans have demonstrated that they have the capacity to deliver their weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi's have not. There is another difference - North Korea does not have the second largest proven oil reserves in the world market.

The cat that the Administration has been carefully trying to keep in the bag while it focused our attention on Iraq and oil has gotten out. While we prepare to fight the imaginary Iraqi threat in the Middle East, what is the President going to do to meet the too real threat in Asia?

We can only imagine with Albert Einstein the weapons that will be used to fight this coming WWIII. And like him we are secure in the knowledge that WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.