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Nuclear weapons are being developed by Iran under the guise of constructing nuclear energy facilities. It has tested ballistic missiles with ranges approaching a capability to hold all of Europe at risk.

The mullahs have told the United Nations inspection wizards at the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA), that Iran does not feel obligated to allow review of its manifold nuclear sites. Also, its freeze on uranium enrichment efforts is only temporary.

Does this sound familiar? it should. It is a repeat of the charade engaged in by the United States and Communist North Korea between 1994 and 2000. In 1994 former President Carter sandbagged a willing Clinton administration by agreeing to a deal with the North Korean dictatorship that froze any further reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the Yongbyong nuclear power plant.

In exchange, the U.S., the Republic of Korea and Japan promised to construct two new nuclear reactors, and provide significant fuel oil and food assistance, as well as other trade and diplomatic concessions to Pyongyang. This one-sided deal was widely hailed as a breakthrough by the disarmament crowd.

But in late 2000 and especially in early 2001, intelligence revealed that the regime in Pyongyang was secretly constructing a uranium enrichment facility to provide an alternative route to develop neclear bombs, while pretending to abide by its 1994 commitment.

This was not unlike its previously declared moratorium on the testing of ballistic missiles, again hailed by the disarmament community and its liberal press poodles as a stunning breakthrough. Pyongyang refrained from flight-testing missiles from its own soil, instead shipping its missiles and rockets to Iran and elsewhere and having them tested there (while also secretly ground testing its rocket engines at its own facilities).

The European three -- France, Germany and Great Britain -- have brokered the most recent Iranian deal for fear that calling the Iranians' bluff will result in the matter being brought before the UN Security Council where sanctions against the regime in Teheran might be put in place and thus jeopardize the lucrative economic deals they have been promised.

But the deal is a total fraud, and everyone knows this. The clowns running the IAEA have convinced themselves that a deal of any kind is somehow better than no deal at all, even if the current agreement does nothing to inhibit the mullahs' race to nuclear weaponry.

But they have failed to even consider the cold-blooded facts: Iran wants nuclear weapons and so does the Communist thugocracy in Pyongyang. No "arms control" is possible under the terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with dangerous regimes bent on acquiring the most dangerous weapons.

That leaves the U.S. only a few choices. We can continue to seek to prevent the regimes from using sech weapons through maintaining deterrence. We can also seek to interdict the transfer or acquisition of nuclear weapons and missile technology through such measures as the Proliferation Security Initiative, which has been successful in interdicting missiles from Pyongyang being shipped to Syria, shutting down the Khan nuclear weapons technology smuggling cartel and with it the Libyan nuclear weapons program.

We can also build missile defenses and enhance port security to protect against the means most likely to be used to deliver such weapons against the U.S. and its allies. Enhanced deterrence would also mean acquiring the ability to hold at risk Iranian and North Korean nuclear and missile assets, even those deeply buried in hardened structures.

While conventional means to do so are being explored by the United States, it is unclear whether such technologies will be adequate to the task. Disarmament critics of the Bush administration wail about both the enhancement of our neclear deterrent and the missile defenses we are building as a companion defense insurance policy. they repeatedly claim such u.s. enhancements somehow undermine the "deterrence" needed by iran and north korea. most americans consider deterrence in the old-fashioned way: it means stopping evil folks from doing bad things. The disarmament crowd has refashioned the debate to expand the meaning.

Now, the communists in Pyongyang and the terror masters in Teheran want to deter the U.S. and its allies. From what you ask? From coming to the assistance of our allies in the region to prevent the expansion of the Iranian empire elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, and to prevent the invasion of the Republic of Korea by Kim Jong Il, the wacky gangster now running North Korea.

In condemning both the deployment of missile defenses and enhancements to our deterrent, they are implicitly allowing both these members of the Axis of Evil an unfettered right to commit aggression and extend the reach of terror.

This double standard was first put forward during the current administration in June 2001, when the New York Timescalled the potential deployment of U.S. missile defenses an example of our seeking an "unfettered national interest."

The Timesalso condemned any notion that the U.S. should make its deterrent capability more credible. Despite the cacophony of criticism from those who would appease evil and allow our enemies to spread terror and attack their neighbors, the Bush administration should be supported in its continued work to fulfill its constitutional oath "to provide for the common defense."

Peter R. Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis. He was a student in the International Division of Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea in 1969-70 and did graduate work at the East Asian Institute of the School of International Affairs at Columbia University in New York. He specializes in nuclear weapons, missile defense, terrorism and the connection to rogue states, as well as U.S. defense policy and arms control. He is an occasional columnist for the Washington Times and National Interest. For the past 13 years, he has been a Senior Defense Consultant to the National Defense University Foundation. These views are his and do not necessarily reflect the views of his affiliated organizations.