Yup! Maybe, NK playing this card to get some commissions from invisible hands. And perfect timing as the election is just few days away.

North Korea has accused Seoul of sending warships into its waters, amid a growing row between the countries…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi.....327848.stm

The Marmot is undoubtedly psychic…

Obviously the NPT doesn’t have much clout with countries that don’t sign up to it. Getting countries to sign up to it seems to have had some benefit in cases like South Africa and arguably Brazil and Argentina.

What little control the international community has over Iran is only augmented by having IAEA inspections. Don’t forget that much of the legal basis for sanctions against the Iranians is based on the IAEA’s contention that they have violated the NPT. Strangely the Iranians seem to put up with the NPT despite the fact that the Shah signed them up to the treaty in the first place.

The six party talks did get the Yongbyon reactor shut down (again). That’s one less plutonium factory, which means less bombs, which means everyone round here has a greater change of living to a ripe old age.

The North Koreans probably don’t have enough material for many bombs and the bombs they do make probably aren’t too reliable, (as a kiloton scale test would seem to indicate). It’s a lot harder to make the materials in secret than use the facilities every knows you’ve already got.

Call it meaningless if you like.

I don’t think the Maverick got that memo.

If the Six-party talks are a waste of time then so was the whole NPT.

Frankly, I pretty much agree with that. The NPT hasn’t stopped Chinese allies like North Korea and Pakistan going nuclear, and it hasn’t mattered much with US allies like Israel and (I guess now) India. Seems to me who you let go nuclear and who you try to stop is a function of geopolitics.