"Under that Cheney risk-rubric, Kim is easily the gravest threat to American lives since Bush took office."

Andrew Sullivan detects incoherence:

[W]hat you cannot do is argue as Dick Cheney and Bush have consistently argued about the WMD threat, then look at their current position on North Korea and consequently make any coherent sense at all.

The Cheney argument, as outlined in Ron Suskind’s book-length brief for the CIA, The One Percent Doctrine, is clear. It is that if there is a 1% chance that terrorists can get access to WMDs, the US, after 9/11, must treat that chance as a 100% certainty.

Under that Cheney risk-rubric, Kim is easily the gravest threat to American lives since Bush took office. He has the materials; he has the motive; all he lacks is a delivery system.

And the failure of his missile delivery system is not a cause for relief. It merely means that if he is to deliver the nuclear goods to his enemies, he has to find another way.

A suitcase? An Al-Qaeda suicide bomber? A Pakistani intelligence agent?

You think these options aren’t available to him? If you live anywhere near a western city you should be concerned.