BLOCKADING KIM JONG-IL

The Proliferation Security Initiative is a done deal. The blockade of North Korea has begun. It's only a stop-gap, and doesn't address the fact that that lunatic actually has his hands on nuclear weapons and will likely test one soon, but does begin construction of a cage around him.

Predictably, the Chinese aren't happy. Not so predictably, the French are, and they're actually on board (or perhaps they're just participating for some backstabbing purpose down the road--time will tell). The navies of the United States, Japan, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Spain will work together to interdict ships on the open seas that are suspected of trafficking in WMDs or component parts. Meaning, they'll be stopping virtually all North Korean ships, since Pyongyang has used its merchant marine navy as a front for weapons traffic for decades. Expect lots of noise from North Korea, and maybe some small-scale naval battles once this plan takes shape. Rather than accept boarding, Pyongyang will probably order its ships to fire on allied ships. We'll be sending some North Korean sailors to Davey Jones' locker shortly.

This organization--the Proliferation Security Initiative--has been set up to do what the UN has been unable or unwilling to do, which is confront rogue regimes pursuing and selling WMDs. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, plays the moral equivalency game, all but equating terro-cracies with democracies. Hailing from a "moderate" Islamic state himself, it's only natural that he would, but his stances show just how useless anything attached to the despot-heavy UN really is. All participants in the PSI are democracies, and include three of the world's best navies (ours, the British and the Australians). It includes the world's top six economies, ourselves, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and eight of the top ten if you include Canada and Spain (stats here). It's a formidable group. If we can get India and Israel on board (well, Israel is probably already on board behind the scenes), we might have the beginnings of a Council of Democracies on our hands.