DON'T FORGET THIS – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:  We cautioned yesterday about taking our eyes off the foreign-policy ball during our election campaign.  Now we're reminded why:

NORTH Korea is forging ahead with work to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, which could add to its atomic arsenal and raise the risk it will sell nuclear know-how abroad, a study says.

-The report published by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) overnight came after warnings from South Korea that "North Korea's nuclear threat has progressed at a rapid pace and reached a very alarming level".

South Korea also said this week the North is restoring facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the source of weapons-grade plutonium in the past.

In the report, Taking Stock: North Korea's Uranium Enrichment Program, authors David Albright and Paul Brannan wrote that North Korea was developing centrifuges to enrich uranium.

The program is an "avenue for North Korea to increase the number and sophistication of its nuclear weapons and for it to proliferate to others who seek to build their own centrifuge programs", the authors wrote.

COMMENT:  The proliferation issue is key.  Should North Korea become destablized as the old order passes, nuclear material and information can get loose.  There are plenty of eager buyers, even people who live in the caves of Afghanistan. 

We have made no progress with North Korea, or Iran, but the administration seems unconcerned.  It may take a shock to wake us up.  But then it will be too late.

October 9, 2010