North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un will draw a dangerous conclusion from the U.S. and Israel’s strikes on Iran: Nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantor of regime survival.
Pyongyang has condemned the operation that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, calling the attacks shameless and an illegal act of aggression. U.S. President Donald Trump justified the war by arguing that Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon, an assertion Iran denies.
North Korea’s nuclear program is far more advanced than Iran’s. It has conducted multiple tests and is widely assessed to have assembled dozens of warheads. The Iran crisis will likely reinforce a belief that American administrations have form when it comes to targeting hostile autocrats who don’t have their own powerful arsenal as protection. Kim will recall the fate of Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi. Commentaries in North Korea’s state media have argued that a nuclear deterrent is essential to avoid suffering the same destiny.