[Proliferated] Nick Eberstadt on Crossing the Red Line

OhmyNews International: “last year I wrote a study on nuclear scenarios in the DPRK nuclear crisis. And one of my scenarios was the possibility of a unilateral, preemptive military strike by the U.S. government.

I asked, ‘Is it possible a president of the United States could do such a thing?’ And my conclusion was that yes, it is possible to imagine, but you have to be imagining a really, really unusual situation, because for the president to make such a decision, he would have to do so in the full knowledge that that would endanger the U.S. alliance with the ROK and Japan. I believe he would only make such a decision if he were convinced that the danger to the United States was so great that he would be willing to put all the relations in Northeast Asia in jeopardy.

So would you call that situation ‘crossing the red line’?

I don’t know. I have never seen the American ‘red line.’ I think they must be infrared and we need special glasses. (laughter)

So far what I have seen is that the presumed red lines get crossed, and nothing happens. So, what were our red lines? Restarting the reactor? Processing the plutonium? Declaring the DPRK is a nuclear power? Sending uranium to Pakistan or maybe even Libya? Where are the red lines? (laughter) I wish I saw them. I must need new glasses!”

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Posted by wfzimmerman to Proliferated at 9/28/2005 10:24:00 AM

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