Category: Axis of Evil

Axis, Schmaxis (6)

North Korea and Iran are cooperating in developing long-range missiles, the deputy director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said yesterday. Army Brig. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly said during a speech that North Korea test fired a long-range Taepodong missile in July, and Iran is working on a space launcher that would help develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could hit the U.S. “Not only North Korea, but Iran has shown some significant developments in their [own] missile systems,” Gen....

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 5

This blog  has previously tracked reports of  nuclear and missile  co-development between Iran and  North  Korea;  London’s Daily  Telegraph is now  reporting a widening expansion of Iranian-North Korean nuclear cooperation. North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year. Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last...

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 17

After North Korea showed up at last month’s disarmament talks just long enough to give the United States the finger, you wouldn’t expect us to go wobbly on our financial measures against North Korea’s financing of WMD’s, counterfeit currency, and other illegal proceeds.  With the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718, those measurements have become requirements.  The good news is that we’re not going wobbly. Treasury, mainly in the physical form of Undersecretary Stuart Levey, has been...

Iran Tests North Korean-Made Missiles

Mingi Hyun has cool pics and a YouTube of Iran’s latest missile test.  The  clarity of the photographs is remarkable as the zaniness of the Iranians.  If you observe, you will note something that looks almost like an Mil Mi-8/14/17 flying around, but the dorsal area looks different.  Does anyone know just what the heck that thing  is?  It’s unidentified, it’s flying, and it’s an object.

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 4

Iran reacts to U.N.S.C.R. 1718: “Some Western countries have turned the U.N. Security Council into a weapon to impose their hegemony and issue resolutions against countries that oppose them,” Ahmadinejad was quoted by the state-run television as saying Monday. “They use the council for threats and intimidation,” the television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. But Iran “won’t be intimidated,” he said. “Mounting threats and pressures against Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities won’t cause even one iota of hesitation in the will of...

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 4: Smoke ‘em While You’ve Got ‘em.

Several months ago, some misguided BBC staffer asked me to fight above my weight and debate former Ambassador Donald Gregg about the allegation that British American Tobacco was secretly making cigarettes in North Korea. (The debate was for a pilot program and never aired.) At the time, I argued that the decision to grow or import tobacco should also be viewed as a decision not to grow or import food. Amb. Gregg, now president of the Korea Society, is a...

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 3

Two interesting reports from the region this week. One is this report that Japan is considering money laundering sanctions against North Korea, similar to those the United States has used with apparent success. There is also a new report that China, directly confronted by U.S. satellite photos, forced the cancellation of a flight that was to have carried North Korean missile parts to Iran. While I doubt China would sign on to a general boycott or sanctions effort, China is...

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 3

There is a theory in this city that a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim terrorist group would not dream of establishing an operational relationship with a secular Sunni Muslim terror-supporting tyrant or a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tyrant. Believers in that theory are going to have real trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that the latter fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tryant’s minions joined a group of pork-eating, soju-swilling aetheist idolator infidels for a night of fireworks on the Fourth of July....

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 2

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of the United States, said Saturday he will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Observers speculate that ideas for cooperation between the two countries could include an oil-for-missiles deal. On further consideration, maybe Pat Robertson was right. An eerily similar Part 1, starring Iran, here. I should say that this does not come as a complete surprise to me. Gordon Cucullu told me that such a connection was in the works about a...