Axis, Schmaxis.

This certainly sounds like a marriage made in hell:

Iran reportedly offered North Korea natural gas and oil as compensation for help with Tehran’s nuclear missile program. Citing unidentified Western sources, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported that a senior Iranian official in mid-October made the proposal during a visit to Pyongyang. The magazine said it was unclear how the North responded.

It added North Korea was an important source of missile technology for Iran and its Shahab-3 missiles are based on North Korea’s Rodong rockets.

Damn good thing no one would put me on the NSC. I would have turned Abadan into a smoldering heap of cinders years ago (a blockade would do just as nicely and would be a fairly simple task for our Navy). You can’t build much of a nuclear program without 90% of your revenues, and it certainly simplifies the whole question of pouring all that diplomatic energy into sanctions that Russia, China, and France are certain to oppose, weaken, and circumvent anyway.

I’m convinced that the UN option is going to drag on interminably and render a toothless result. It has little deterrent value, which is why the Iranians are pressing on with their nuke program despite the sanctions threat. On the other hand, the shock of a sudden loss of most of its income might bring the mullahs down if we also gave sufficient encouragement to Iran’s discontented population. Any oil we seize could be sold at market prices; the income could be placed in escrow for the use of a democratic oppposition movement.

Now before you go apopleptic and call for your smelling salts about how simplistic all of this is, just bear in mind how much less complicated our diplomacy with North Korea might be today if Bush I or Clinton had done something simplistic to Yongbyon back in the early 1990’s, when that was still an option.

My personal three-word formula for sleeplessness? Mullahs with nukes. No responsible chief executive lets that come to pass.