The release late yesterday of previously classified information about the existence of hundreds of chemical weapons in Iraq should bolster the case being made inside the GOP that they should remain steadfast on the war. Certainly, there is no chance now that any significant troop withdrawals will happen before November. Since that will not happen, and there is almost no chance of any significant diminution of the violence in Iraq by that time, the GOP has no choice but to back the President and the war policy to the hilt. Karl Rove, now clear of any possible indictments, can lead the charge from the political standpoint, and the President continues to lead from the policy standpoint. GOP leaders in Congress seem now to realize this and are aggressively forcing the Democrats to come to some sort of conclusion about the war. This has already led to serious infighting inside the Democratic Party, as the less ideologically blinded or opportunistic Senators and Representatives understand that they cannot go back to their constituents and campaign on a policy of accepting defeat in a war. If the news about WMDs is bolstered by the release of more information about further discoveries, that will go a long way toward defusing the argument that the President misled us into the war in the first place. Things are finally starting to look better for the GOP.

Unfortunately, other issues can always unexpectedly intrude. With the North Koreans poised to launch an ICBM test, the former Secretary of Defense and one of his assistants from the Clinton Administration, William Perry and Ashton Carter, have written this provocative piece in the Washington Post this morning. They advocate a pre-emptive U.S. military strike against the Taepodong-2 missile on its launch pad in North Korea. While I believe they are correct in asserting that this could be done with sea-launched cruise missiles, thus not using the territory of an ally like Japan or South Korea, and not risking the shoot-down of any of our planes and, thus, the potential capture of our pilots, I cannot buy their assertion that the North Koreans would do nothing in response. Can we really be sure that Kim Jong (mentally) Il would really do the prudent thing and not spark a regional war in response? It seems like quite a gamble.

David Warren also thinks the test is not a test at all, but an act of war. Like me, though, he expects the only action on our part to be limited to strongly-worded protests.