We must take out Saddam now, before he's as invulnerable as Kim Jong-il

By invasion? He'd take down with him at least Seoul and a good part of Tokyo and US bases in the area; and China would be up in arms, perhaps literally, at the prospect of sharing a land border with what would become a US protectorate.

By surgical strike, like Israel's on Iraq's Osiris reactor, on Kim's nuclear weapon and missile holdings and facilities? He has said he would take that as an act of war and respond with all the means at his command. In other words, he would make a suicide bomber of his whole country.

By sanctions and other controls, such as inspections, on what he can import and export and produce? He has said that, too, would be treated as an act of all-out war.

By bargaining our aid for his weapons and inspection of his nuclear and other facilities? That would be appeasement and has already been tried without lasting success.

By every nuclear power giving up its nuclear weapons, as the Canberra Commission foolishly recommended and the ALP is considering pursuing? That is an impossible and indeed dangerous dream, not least because at the first sign of big trouble hostile powers would, if they could, reconstitute their nuclear armories lest the putative foe do so first.

So none of our options is promising. Which is a reason for taking out Saddam now, before he acquires Kim's mantle of invulnerability. And which is why the USA is hesitant about settling on a policy for dealing with North Korea. The US is hesitant because the choices are few, narrow, hard and probably unavailing - not as one Canberra-based commentator has suggested recently - because the USA really does not want to solve the North Korean conundrum.