Informed Speculation

All signs point to this being the real deal:

North Korea said Sunday night that it had set off its first nuclear test, becoming the eighth country in history, and arguably the most unstable and most dangerous, to proclaim that it has joined the club of nuclear weapons states.

The test came just two days after the country was warned by the United Nations Security Council that the action could lead to severe consequences.

Nations across the world condemned the test today, and an emergency meeting of the Security Council was set to take up the issue this morning.

China, Pyongyang’s closet supporter, called it a “flagrant and brazen” violation of international opinion and said it “firmly opposes” North Korea’s conduct.

In Russia, which shares a short border with North Korea, officials reacted with dismay and condemnation. “Russia absolutely condemns North Korea’s nuclear test,” President Vladimir V. Putin said in televised remarks during a meeting with his senior government ministers.

Appearing with Mr. Putin, the defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said that the Russian military had confirmed the test and estimated its force at somewhere between 5 and 15 kilotons much larger that estimates from South Korea.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed the explosion, declaring that the test was a “historic event.” It said there was no leak or danger from its test.

“The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent,” the news agency said, according to Reuters. The announcement

“It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA (Korean People’s Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defence capability.”

American officials cautioned that they had not yet received any confirmation that the test had occurred. The United States Geological Survey said it had detected a tremor of 4.2 magnitude on the Korean Peninsula.

Senior Bush administration officials said that they had little reason to doubt the announcement, and warned that the test would usher in a new era of confrontation with the isolated and unpredictable country run by President Kim Jong-il.

What form that confrontation would take was not yet clear. Last week, the administration’s special envoy for North Korea issued a stern warning to Pyongyang not to go ahead with its threatened test, saying “’We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea.”

Early Monday morning, even before the test was confirmed, Bush administration officials were holding conference calls to discuss ways to further cut off a country that is already subject to sanctions, and hard-liners said the moment had arrived for neighboring countries, especially China and Russia, to cut off the trade and oil supplies that have been Mr. Kim’s lifeline.

In South Korea, the country that fought a bloody war with the North for three years and has lived with an uneasy truce and failed efforts at reconciliation for more than half a century, officials said they believed that an explosion occurred around 10:36 p.m. New York time — 11:36 a.m. Monday in Korea.

They identified the source of the explosion as North Hamgyong Province, roughly the area where American spy satellites have been focused for several years on a variety of suspected underground test sites.

That was less than an hour after North Korean officials had called their counterparts in China and warned them that a test was just minutes away. The Chinese, who have been North Korea’s main ally for 60 years but have grown increasingly frustrated by the its defiance of Beijing, sent an emergency alert to Washington through the United States Embassy in Beijing. Within minutes, President Bush was notified, shortly after 10 p.m., by his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, that a test was imminent.

The UN Security Council has called an emergency meeting; that’s rich.  They should be calling an emergency meeting on Iran, because North Korea has already crossed that river.  I’ve got nothing but contempt for the U.S. response, as well; as you recall, just a few days ago we blustered that ‘we wouldn’t live with a nuclear North Korea’.

It was a stupid thing to say.  If you don’t intend to back it up, don’t make the threat…