Today, The New York Times, after praising the Bush administration for its “mixture of diplomatic creativity, flexibility, patience and follow-through” in its discussions with North Korea, suggested that the President use the same tactics to end Iran’s nuclear program. (This week, North Korea said it would disable its only working reactor and disclose the full extent of its nuclear programs by the end of this year.) For once, it’s hard to blame the Times for an ill-considered opinion. After all, the Times borrowed this exceedingly bad idea from the President himself.

Yesterday, Mr. Bush, responding to a question about whether the United States would negotiate with Iran, held up North Korea as a “case study” for the mullahs in Tehran. The clerics either are laughing at our leader or are utterly mystified about what he means. Kim Jong Il, after all, used his talks with the United States to buy time to master bomb-building techniques. Bush has now given the Iranians the same opportunity for building nuclear weapons of their own.

If there is anything we should be conveying to Iran, it is that we will not repeat the same mistakes that we made—and are continuing to make—in our talks with Kimist Korea. This is what we should say to the atomic ayatollahs: We will not engage in endless discussions, we will not let you use the United Nations to create roadblocks, we will not permit you to build a nuclear weapon. You will pay a fearsome price for destabilizing the international community.

Before President Bush holds up North Korea as an example, he must first take away its weapons. This week’s deal with Pyongyang, although welcome, is only an interim step in an interim arrangement. The difficult part of the disarmament process will be getting the North actually to surrender its bombs and non-weaponized plutonium and to permit continual on-site inspections.

So until he actually disarms Kim, the President should not be boasting. America, the strongest nation in history, should never have allowed North Korea, one of the most destitute, to arm itself with nukes in the first place. And unfortunately, the Iranians are watching.