ANOTHER GREAT AMERICAN FOREIGN-POLICY SUCCESS – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  With all the concern over Iran, we sometimes forget North Korea, one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and a country that broke an agreement to curtail its nuclear program.  From AFP: 

North Korea on Saturday threatened South Korea with "indiscriminate" military strikes unless it halts cross-border propaganda broadcasts, and issued fresh nuclear weapons warnings against the United States.

The threats came amid escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula following a landmine attack South Korea blamed on the North and ahead of a major South Korea-US joint military exercise condemned by Pyongyang.

They also coincided with celebrations in both Koreas to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean peninsula's 1945 liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

The North Koreans were liberated from Japanese rule, only to have the Japanese replaced by the Soviets.

Initially there were hopes the anniversary might be an opportunity for some sort of inter-Korean rapprochement, but instead ties have spiralled downwards to the familiar accompaniment of angry rhetoric and mutual recrimination.

After three landmine blasts maimed two South Korean soldiers on border patrol, Seoul this week resumed high-decibel propaganda broadcasts across the heavily-militarised frontier, using batteries of loudspeakers that had lain silent for more than a decade.

Pyongyang rejected accusations that it was behind the mine incident as "absurd," and its frontline army border command on Saturday demanded the broadcasts be halted immediately.

Failure to do so would trigger "an all-out military action of justice to blow up all means for 'anti-North psychological warfare' in all areas along the front," the command said in a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency.

COMMENT:  We've heard this kind of rhetoric before, and it usually dies down.  But "usually" is not much of a guarantee.  The North Korean regime broke its nuclear treaty and now is a nuclear power.  It could easily miscalculate and launch an attack, plunging the United States into a bitter war. 

Its threats against the United States should be taken seriously.  We don't know what a desperate government, under intense pressure, might do with nuclear-tipped missiles.  Countries have launched wars just to rally their own populations.  Or, a country like North Korea, sensing American weakness, might attack us, believing we would not retaliate.

August 15,  2015