There’s no shortage of foreign policy blunders under this administration’s watch. Barack Obama has offered an olive branch to an unrepentant Cuba, allowed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to use chemical weapons, basically held the door open while Russia marched right into Ukraine, abandoned Iraq and Afghanistan (thus providing an opportunity for the Islamic State to fill the void), turned his back on Israel, and fallen for Iran’s empty pledge not to build a nuclear warhead. Add it all up, and it’s difficult to keep track. No wonder we don’t hear much these days about North Korea, a country that has every intention of following Iran’s footsteps. On Saturday, the Kim Jon Un regime test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine, which, at the very least, means the Communist nation is facilitating more tension, or, at worst, signals an escalated military threat. “Security experts say that North Korea acquiring the ability to launch missiles from submarines would be an alarming development because missiles fired from submerged vessels are harder to detect before launch than land-based ones,” according to the Associated Press. That raises even more red flags for locations along the West Coast because many believe Korea already has the ability to build a nuke. Hot Air’s Noah Rothman writes, “If North Korea were to park a submarine armed with a nuclear-tipped SLBM a hundred miles off the California coast, it would be infinitely harder for America’s continental anti-ballistic missile installations to intercept that threat.” Korea’s latest provocation, which is illegal under sanctions imposed by the United Nations, may or may not portend an imminent danger, but what’s clear is that, just like Iran, America’s failure to reign in the threat has allowed the country to inch ever closer to its goal.

Update, May 19: Reuters reports, “Photographs showing a North Korean missile launched from a submarine were manipulated by state propagandists and the country may be years away from developing such technology, analysts and a top U.S. military official said on Tuesday.” That doesn’t change the NoKos’ ambitions or the “what-if” scenarios, and it fits with the typical chest-thumping huff and bluster from the Kim regime.