As if the Obama administration didn’t have enough problems on its plate, the Sydney Morning Herald reports, based on “evidence from key defectors,” that “Burma’s isolated military junta is building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction facilities with North Korean help, with the aim of acquiring its first nuclear bomb in five years.”

Just what the world needs to go along with the North Korean bomb and the (soon to come) Iranian bomb — the Burmese bomb.

I wonder what would lead the Burmese junta to think it could get away with such a dangerous and destabilizing move? Gee, perhaps Iran and North Korea suffering absolutely no serious repercussions may have had something to do with it?

This development shows just how dangerous the Iranian and North Korean programs are — not just in and of themselves but also for how they encourage nuclear proliferation in other rogue states.

So what can we do about it? History suggests only two really effective ways of rolling back nuclear-weapons programs. The first is military action. Libya gave up its WMD program following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Syria’s program, meanwhile, was stopped or at least set back by an Israeli air strike on its nuclear reactor in 2007. In the past, other countries such as South Africa and Brazil have given up their nuclear-weapons programs after they have democratized.

It is telling, in light of this experience, that we are pursuing neither democratization nor military action (at least not in a serious way) against North Korea, Iran, or Burma. That means the odds of success are not high and the world will likely become a more dangerous place. Unless, perhaps, Israel bails us out. Wonder whether Rangoon is within Israel’s aircraft range?

(h/t: Foreign Policy Initiative)