Last night during his State of the Union address, President Bush reminded the American people that "different threats require different strategies". Critics of the U.S. policy toward Iraq cynically ask why America is targeting Saddam Hussein's regime while not extending the same hostile treatment to North Korea? The critics point out that while Saddam Hussein is accused of seeking weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, North Korea has publicly declared that it already has the capacity to build nuclear weapons. North Korea, like Iraq, is ruled by a brutal dictatorship that seems to have little regard for international law or human rights. Moreover, President Bush included both Iraq and North Korea in his "axis of evil" speech following the 9/11 attacks. Why, the critics ask, is the U.S. pursuing diplomatic solutions with North Korea while it sounds the war trumpets against Iraq?

The critics deserve a response. But for the response to make sense, we must understand a basic truth about statesmanship and foreign policy. Statesmanship is not the same thing as moral philosophy. The statesman must act in the real world. This means he must find the meeting point between two things: what it is good to do, and what can reasonably be accomplished. In World War II, for example, America allied with Stalin in opposing Hitler even though both men were evil. The reason for this was that Hitler posed a more mortal threat at the time. Statesmanship should be based on moral considerations, but statesmanship is morality tempered by prudence.

Now consider the situation in North Korea. Precisely because North Korea has nuclear weapons, it is much more difficult for the United States or anyone else to disarm that nation. Once a country goes nuclear, it becomes far more dangerous to its enemies, who must now consider the risks of a nuclear response. The case of North Korea illustrates the point that if Iraq is permitted to go ahead and develop nuclear weapons, then Saddam Hussein will be vastly more difficult to deal with in the future. For all practical purposes, he would be untouchable.

There are dictators in the world, and there are madmen. North Korea is a dictatorship of a species that we recognize. We have seen it before in the Soviet Union, we see it now in China. North Korea is the little cousin of this ghastly fraternity. Its leaders are ruthless, and they invoke socialist and communist ideology to justify their iron grip on power. All of this is depressingly true. Yet the West has been successful in deterring communist regimes of this sort for more than half a century. Even though the Soviets had thousands of nuclear warheads, even though China has a nuclear arsenal, these regimes are governed by rational people who want to expand their international influence but who understand the traditional logic of deterrence. North Korea is not likely to use its nuclear weapons if the understood consequence would be massive retaliation against that country and the complete destruction of its leadership. So why are they disclosing their nuclear program now, right in the midst of the Iraqi crisis. Is Bush right in suggesting that "North Korea is using the threat of nuclear weapons to incite fear and gain concessions"? Bush may deny it, but their taunt may serve their goal of securing a non-aggression treaty with the US.

By contrast, Saddam Hussein is a different kind of animal. He is not a madman in the sense that he is incapable of mindful action. Whether he has a "martyr complex" like the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists is debatable. What we do know is that Saddam is fully capable of using weapons of mass destruction. He has already used chemical and biological weapons against his domestic opponents. The recent report to the Security Council identifies chemical weapons known to be part of the Iraqi arsenal that they have not accounted for or shown evidence of their destruction. Who can doubt that he would use his nuclear capacity to threaten Israel and the West? Who can deny that Saddam would, if he could, collaborate secretly with terrorists to wreak massive destruction on America? The civilized world cannot afford a nuclear-armed Saddam.

Even though both regimes are evil, there are important differences between North Korea and Iraq, and American policy is right to distinguish between them.