The "greater threat" canard

The primary source of this blog isn't the 'net, it's one of my wife's co-workers. In a debate over the forceful liberation of Iraq, this attentive sovereign franchisee (that's "informed voter" to normal folks) floated the Howard Dean canard that military action against Iraq is wrong because North Korea poses a greater threat to American security. Dean appears to endorse a sort of "Axis-of-Evil Whack-a-Mole" strategy of massing our military resources on the doorstep of whoever is carping the loudest at any given time. On closer inspection, however, what he really claims as the "solution inégalée" is "negotiation" with North Korea and, undoubtedly, Iraq. "For want of direct dialogue, he runs the risk of allowing North Korea to become a nuclear power on his watch," says Dean. Right. And France failed to forestall invasion by the Nazis because they didn't offer to trade heating oil and light-water nuclear reactors for the Vaterland's Panzers, Stukas and Messerschmitts.