The New York Sun weighs in on “The Axis Bomb:”

To the extent that America needs to be particularly wary, it is of the danger that the North Korean test could be, like the war in Lebanon and Israel this summer, an Iranian-Syrian stunt aimed at diverting world attention from Tehran’s own nuclear program. The North Korean test has prompted predictable calls for renewed and invigorated diplomacy, but America has been dealing with North Korea diplomatically since the 1994 “Agreed Framework,” negotiated by our most hapless president, Jimmy Carter. In 2000, President Clinton went so far as to dispatch Secretary Albright to pay homage and clink glasses with Kim Jong Il, a toast that will live in infamy as one of the lowest points to which an American state secretary has ever sunk. North Korea has reveled in the diplomacy while moving ahead with its nuclear weapons program.

Iran has been watching and learning. The mullahs were caught a few years ago lying for almost two decades about their nuclear program. Nothing happened. There were no consequences. Instead they too were offered sweeteners in exchange for giving up what they shouldn’t have in the first place. There has been a merry-go-round of broken deadlines and then more concessions. In early June, Mr. Bush warned that Iran had “weeks not months.” At the United Nations, the Security Council gave Iran an August 31 deadline to suspend enrichment, a deadline Iran mocked. It’s now October 10 and there have been no consequences for Iran.

Bryan Preston has a podcast with David Thibault on how we got here. Allah looks at the “dud” reports.

Meanwhile, the U.N. ponders. They’re very good at that.