Happy New Year, folks. Savor the peace; the war starts in a month.

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Iraq is a crisis. North Korea is a crisis. But according to the Bush administration Iraq is a bigger crisis, because we can’t let Iraq become another North Korea.

Well, why not? Wouldn’t it be better if Iraq became another North Korea?

After all, we’re told Iraq may require a full-scale war involving 250,000 troops, of whom 60,000 are already deployed. Billions of dollars may have to be spent on this war, and thousands of lives could be lost, many of them in a chemical weapons attack; peacekeeping and nation-building after the war could go on for years.

North Korea? Hey, we can just talk it out. Diplomacy is the best solution. The President says so.

So wouldn’t it be a good thing if Iraq became another North Korea?

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In this morning's issue, USA Today describes two threats. One of these threats is much, much more important than the other, so much so that it requires full-scale war really, really soon. One doesn’t. Can you guess which is which?

North Korea probably has one or two nuclear weapons. Iraq very likely does not....

North Korea's military is nearly three times larger than Iraq's, and it is concentrated in a much smaller area....

North Korea poses a greater threat to launch a surprise attack on a key U.S. ally than Iraq does. U.S. spy satellites would detect Iraqi preparations for an attack on Kuwait or Saudi Arabia well in advance, as they did in the mid-1990s. North Korea's deployment at the DMZ, its mountainous terrain and a network of caves that can conceal its forces increase the danger of surprise.

Military experts say a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be swift and victorious. War on the Korean peninsula, because of the more difficult terrain and the larger size of North Korea's military, could be more protracted and devastating to both sides.

U.S. war plans for Iraq call for deployment of no more than 250,000 troops. The Pentagon's plan for war in Korea would involve a force of nearly 700,000 troops beyond the 37,000 permanently stationed in South Korea.

U.S. intelligence considers both North Korea and Iraq likely to use chemical weapons in the face of war against the United States....

...North Korea has been pouring its limited resources into maintaining a huge military force. An invasion of South Korea would probably involve the use of commando forces, chemical weapons and massed, mobile artillery fire....

Iraq, a Muslim country about the size of California, is in no position to invade its neighbors....