In return, the U.S. would phase out economic sanctions, North Korea would be supplied with 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually, and South Korea would build two lightweight reactors for them.
Fast forward just a decade--by 2005, North Korea declares that it has indeed manufactured nuclear weapons, which are then on display for the world in a nuclear test in 2006.
Today in the Washington Post, we herald another historic deal, this one with Iran that "freezes key parts of their nuclear program."
In return, Iran gets relief from economic sanctions.
Yet, even now as we celebrate this historic agreement, the Iranian President is not dismantling but rather demanding the right to keep their atomic program.
Moreover, just last week, according to USA Today, Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei called Israel a "rabid dog" amid chants of "Death to America!"
Online, The Diplomat confidently says this time is different, "Iran is not North Korea," because "Iran is cosmopolitan" and "prides itself on international engagement."
Yet, according to PBS, The Islamic Republic of Iran is far from both of these with a "Supreme Leader who exerts ideological and political control over a system dominated by clerics who shadow every major function of the state."
And Amnesty International writes that Iran has a history of "widening crackdown on dissent that has left journalists, students, political and rights activists, as well as clerics languishing in prisons."
Lest we forget, that Iran is the country that held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, threatened to annihilate Israel, denied the Holocaust, asserted that the U.S. itself was behind 9/11, and is the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world.
Oh, how very cosmopolitan!
While we all would hope and pray for a sincere and lasting peace with Iran, this agreement seems to spell a deja vu world of scary WMD cat and mouse, all over again.
(Source Photo: here)
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