North Korea's recent sinking of the South Korean war ship, the Cheonan, which went down off the Koreas' west coast on March 26, killing 46 South Korean sailors, would be a clear violation of the cease fire that ended hostilities on the Korean peninsula. Technically, after the Korean War, there never was a signed peace treaty; rather in 1953 a cease-fire was declared and the UN appointed a US-led military command to monitor the cease-fire. This unprovoked and unrepentant attack was a clearly a provocative act of war by a belligerent international pariah against a staunch ally of the United States. As such, one has to wonder: Where are the Neo-Conservatives and where is their drumbeat for war?

If you compare the case for war with Iraq to North Korea, the case for war with North Korea is much stronger. Both were members of President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil". North Korea is documented to posses and tested nuclear weapons, whereas Saddam's program was hypothetical (and ultimately non-existent). In addition, North Korea has been involved in nuclear weapons proliferation, as admitted by Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan and his nuclear black-market dealings. The “Scud” missiles used by Saddam during the first Gulf War were of North Korean design. In addition, North Korea has been guilty of many other heinous crimes such as kidnapping, counterfeiting, drug smuggling, and the like. The North admits that its agents kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens from 1977 to 1983 in a secret program for North Korean agents to learn Japanese and Japanese culture. In an even more bizarre incident, Kim Jong-Il, son of the "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung who fancied himself a movie expert, in February 1978, ordered South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee and her film-director husband Shin Sang-ok to be kidnapped in Hong Kong and taken to Pyongyang. The couple was forced to produce films for Kim Jong-il and the regime until their escape while filming in Vienna in 1986. The final excuse for going to war in Iraq was that Iraq and World was better off without Saddam in power. North Korea's policies has starved millions of its own citizens, and it deals with dissent by jailing alleged traitors and their families of up to three generations in labor camps. In terms of sheer brutality the Kims have given the Hussein family a run for their money. And finally, the international investigation published May 20th has provided irrefutable evidence that North Korea was behind the act of war that was the sinking of the Cheonan - a very different case than the Neo-Conservative case for "preemptive war". Taken at face value, the same conditions that laid the foundation for the justification for the Iraq War not only exist in the case of North Korea, but actually make a stronger case for war with then they did for Iraq.

Yet, from the Neo-Conservative camp, the same movement that dominated George Bush's foreign policy during the early Bush years, the silence has been deafening. Even the Weekly Standard, the primary mouthpiece for the Neo- Conservative movement hasn't called for war with North Korea. From this silence we can deduce one of two things: either there is an admission by the Neo-Conservative camp that the underlying assumptions behind their hawkish foreign policies views were incorrect, or the underlining reasons for war in Iraq weren't as they appeared.

The US is going on ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, at the cost of thousands of US lives and a trillion US dollars. The time honored adages that "it's easy for old men send young men to die at war" and "war is hell" are both rearing their ugly head. Every generation seems to have to relearn these lessons. In the movie All Quiet on the Western Front, a schoolmaster in World War I Germany uses a rousing speech of patriotism and glory to convince his students to sign-up and go to war. After several years of incredible hardship and death, one student returns to the school and interrupts his schoolmaster in the middle of providing the same speech to send a new crop of students to the front lines. After having experienced war, the student's views contrast starkly with the headmaster's call to arms. The movie, made in the shadow of World War I, was a lesson that may have been lost on the Neo-Conservatives. Perhaps a war weary United States puts a new perspective on the Neo-Conservative view points. Perhaps, the arguments for "preemptive war" and a unilateral use of force are being viewed in a new light and aren't quite as appealing as they once were. The Neo-Conservatives believed that the United States, as the sole remaining super-power, wasn't being given its due. Petty dictators such as Saddam dared to flaunt the United States dictates, comfortable that the United States would not move against them. To the Neo-Conservatives, war wasn't something to be feared or used as a last resort; rather they championed the concept of "pre-emptive war" - a first strike war. Their theory was that a quick and decisive victory against Saddam would be an object lesson to all - disobey the United States at your own peril: you can lose your power, your country, and even your life. Is this silence an admission of that the limits of military power and therefore a complete repudiation and debunking of the movement? Was the Neo-Conservatives' hawkish views predicated on faulty assumptions about the limits of military power? And if so, isn't there something criminal about testing a unproven hypothesis at the expense of thousands of US lives, tens of thousands of US soldiers permanently maimed, and a trillion dollars to the US taxpayers?

Alternatively, one might claim that the geopolitical situation is different. It is true that North Korea has nuclear weapons, and is poised to destroy Seoul should armed conflict break out. But there was belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was willing to use them. Iraq was also a dire threat to an ally in the region, Israel, just as North Korea is a threat to our ally South Korea. Sure, China is big unknown, whose two biggest fears are: (1) having to support millions of impoverished North Korean refugees if the regime collapses, and (2) having a democratic unified North Korea on its border. Yet, the Neo-Conservatives were playing with a delicate balance of power in the Middle East. George H.W. Bush realized upsetting this balance of power could be catastrophic, and left Saddam and Iraq in one piece following the Gulf War as a counterbalance to Iran. His son wasn't quite as astute, and has now permanently changed the balance of power, with Iran remerging as the new regional powerhouse. Certainly, the geo-political risks were just as great in both regions.

So with a stronger case for war, and an equivalent geopolitical situation, why aren't there calls for war? There is, of course, an elephant in the room: that the stated reasons and real reasons for going to war in Iraq were different. After a series of murky and changing reasons for war, there are two geopolitical reasons that American may have gone to war in Iraq and not in North Korea, two reasons that any Neo-Conservative would immediate refute and reject. These are the importance of oil in Iraq, and Israel’s un-due influence on America's foreign policy. Although much was done to deflect any connection between oil and the Iraq War, clearly America's economic interests in the Middle East lies with oil - a factor that must have been calculated into any war planning. The absolute denial that oil was a factor in any war planning rings untrue. It would have been completely irresponsible to not have considered the economic disruption in the case of a shortage or embargo due to the war. Likewise, Israel was attacked by Iraq's Scud missiles and threaded with chemical attack during the Gulf War. Saddam's government was paying $10,000 to the families of suicide bombers that attacked Israel and was a leading backer the Palestinian cause. Was America manipulated into sacrificing American lives and material to defeat an enemy of Israel? If Iraq had not existed, and the Neo-Conservatives found themselves confronted with the sinking of the Cheonan, without oil or Israel's influence, would the Neo-Conservatives manufactured a case to convince the nation to go war?

Either way, there is historical parallel between events, one that should not go unnoticed. Time usually provides a historical perspective that provides clarity and focus, often eliminating the distortion that emotional bias that proximity to events causes. Perhaps with time, we'll understand better the real causes of America's over-reach at the start of this new millennium.