The war in Iran sends one clear message to Kim Jong Un: nuclear weapons remain the ultimate guarantee of regime survival, but they do not provide immunity from pressure, isolation, or attack. Photo by EPA/KCNA
May 30 (UPI) -- The author prefers to use the lowercase "n" to challenge the Kim family regime's legitimacy.
The Message to Pyongyang
The war in Iran sends one clear message to Kim Jong Un: nuclear weapons remain the ultimate guarantee of regime survival, but they do not provide immunity from pressure, isolation, or attack. Kim will not see this war as an argument for restraint. He will see it as evidence that a regime without a fully credible nuclear deterrent remains vulnerable to coercion by the United States and its allies.
That is the first and most important lesson for north Korea. Kim will study Iran's vulnerability and conclude that Tehran was exposed because it had not yet achieved a survivable nuclear force. He will compare Iran's position with his own. north Korea already has nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, hardened facilities, underground infrastructure, cyber capabilities, and a political system built for endurance under pressure. Kim will believe that his father and grandfather made the right decision by pursuing nuclear weapons at almost any cost.
