North Korea’s Cuban Friends

North Korea's Cuban Friends
The Castro boys now have a U.S. Hellfire missile to share with Kim Jong Un.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
Jan. 10, 2016 4:36 p.m. ET

You'd think that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un wouldn't have a
friend in the world these days. His relentless pursuit of weapons of
mass destruction and willingness to starve his own people is evil
madness. Last week even communist China condemned the supreme leader's
fourth nuclear test, which the chubby little psychopath called "the
thrilling sound of our first hydrogen bomb explosion."

But Mr. Kim is not all alone. He still has the Caribbean's Cosa
Nostra—aka the Castro family—as a friend and ally. The Cold War may be
long over, but Cuba is sticking by the North Korean pariah.

This bond exposes Americans to grave risk. Analysts fret that Pyongyang
is developing missiles and miniaturized warheads that will allow it to
lob a bomb into the continental U.S. But having a desperate ideological
pal 90 miles from U.S. shores magnifies the danger. In the past 21/2
years Cuba has tried to smuggle weapons to Pyongyang, engaged in
high-level meetings with North Korean officials, and secured U.S.
military technology. Anybody want to connect the dots?

On Friday Wall Street Journal reporters Devlin Barrett and Gordon Lubold
broke the story that the State Department became aware in June 2014 that
a Hellfire missile had gone missing and that it was "likely in Cuba."

Let's face it: That was no shipping error, as some have speculated.
Stealing weapons technology is what spies do for a living, and getting
hold of a sophisticated piece of U.S. equipment is a major coup for Havana.

It is not a stretch to think that the regime will share, for a price,
everything there is to know about the laser-guided, air-to-surface
Hellfire—which can be launched from a helicopter or drone as well as
from a plane—with its good friends Iran, Russia and North Korea, and
even with other terrorist organizations.

President Obama seems to think that the Castros have abandoned their
revolutionary obsession with harming the U.S. The theft of the Hellfire
would have disabused even Chauncey Gardiner of such naiveté.

But not Mr. Obama. He was already engaged in a rapprochement with the
regime when the State Department learned that Havana had the missile. If
he issued an ultimatum that it be returned, his talks might have collapsed.

So six months later he went ahead with his plan to throw a lifeline to
the economically struggling Castros by restoring diplomatic relations
and liberalizing American travel to the island. In May Cuba was removed
from the State Department's list of state-sponsors of terrorism.

The missile is only the latest example of the no good that Cuba is still
up to. In July 2013 Panama Canal authorities discovered 240 metric tons
of weapons—including jet fighters and missiles—hidden under a sugar
shipment aboard a North Korean ship that had sailed from Cuba and was
bound for North Korea.

Havana tried to play down the incident, calling the weapons outmoded.
But the U.N.'s North Korea sanctions committee said the shipment
demonstrated "intent to evade UN sanctions" and that it was "consistent
with previous attempts by" Pyongyang "to transfer arms and related
materiel through similar tactics in contravention of Security Council
prohibitions." Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., called
it a "cynical, outrageous and illegal attempt" by the two countries to
evade U.N. sanctions.

In the 13 months since Mr. Obama's announcement that he would reopen a
U.S. embassy in Cuba and use executive decrees to weaken the U.S.
embargo, Cuba has repeatedly pledged its loyalty to North Korea. In
March 2015, according to Cuba's state-run news agency, North Korea's
foreign minister visited Havana and reminded Cubans that the two peoples
"share a history of struggle together in the same trench against U.S.
imperialism, which continues exerting economic pressure on our countries
to this day." The news agency also reported that the minister brought a
"message from Jong-Un in order to expand and strengthen" the excellent
relations between the two countries.

In June 2015 Raúl Castro hosted Kang Sok Su, the secretary of
international relations for the North Korean Workers' Party. In
September Mr. Kim received Cuban Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel in
Pyongyang. Cuba's state-owned newspaper Granma reported that Mr. Kim
sent "an affectionate greeting" to the Castro boys during the visit. It
also said that Messrs. Díaz-Canel and Kim discussed the two countries'
close relations and mutual cooperation.

This ought to worry U.S. national-security officials. But Mr. Obama is
busy worrying about shaping his legacy. I'm not sure why: He's the first
U.S. president to bow to a Saudi king, the first to open the door for
Iran to get the bomb, and the first to prop up the Castros even while
they hold a stolen Hellfire missile. His place in history is already secure.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com.

Source: North Korea's Cuban Friends - WSJ -
http://www.wsj.com/articles/north-koreas-cuban-friends-1452461775