If Kim Jong Un can have nukes, why can’t Iran? 

The Trump administration, along with its Israeli ally, has been at war with Iran for 11 weeks. The ostensible reason was that Iran was so close to obtaining a nuclear weapon that only an operation as massive as Epic Fury could prevent that from occurring. Yet last June, Operation Midnight Hammer “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capacity. Is there a small disconnect here?

The other objectives were regime change, destroying Iran’s rather meager air force and navy, striking its missile infrastructure and removing Iran as a threat to the region. One can assess how many missions were accomplished, as the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked by both Iran and the U.S.

But why is it unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons when, only a decade ago, North Korea and its unstable dictator Kim Jong Un were allowed to retain theirs and fit them to longer range missiles? Was Kim a lesser threat? Was he not seen as volatile and dangerous as the mullahs and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who run Iran? Why this anomaly?

Set aside for a moment the rhetoric about Iran’s threat of “death to America” and its 47 years of war against the U.S., as the administration claims. The U.S. and United Nations did fight a war against North Korea from 1950 to 1953 that killed many more Americans than Iran has. That war has, technically, never ended, and is under a 70-plus year truce.

History underscores the paradox of allowing a nuclear North Korea and denying Iran similar weapons. The crisis began in July 2017........

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