Barely a week after Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, North Korea has stunned American diplomats by disclosing that it has a secret nuclear weapons program, in violation of its 1994 treaty with America. Mr. Carter’s role in this matter is more than incidental; a report in Saturday’s New York Times, enumerating the accomplishments for which Mr. Carter earned the prize, cited the ex-president’s trip to Pyongyang “in 1994 to ease tensions between North Korea, South Korea and the United States over North Korea’s alleged nuclear weapons program.” Alleged, indeed. Mr. Carter will now join 1994 winner Yasser Arafat in the ranks of Nobel laureates whose “peace” achievements proved not worth the piece of paper upon which they were written.

But the North Korean nuclear program is relevant to far more than merely the prestige of the Nobel committee or of the Plains peanut farmer. Consider the words that President Clinton used in announcing the treaty back in 1994: “This is a good deal for the United States. North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. … The United States and international inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its commitments.” In other words, “international inspectors” and careful monitoring were not enough to prevent an axis of evil country run by a crazed totalitarian communist dictator from running a hidden nuclear weapons program.

That is something worth remembering as the doves chirp about inspections and monitoring and supposed disarmament being sufficient to deal with another devious dictator, the one in Iraq. As the North Korean example shows, only regime change — not treaties and inspections — will be enough to gain true confidence that America and Israel are out of danger of a nuclear strike. Now, there will no doubt be those who see the North Korean disclosure as a triumph of diplomacy, coming as it did after the Bush administration decided to reopen talks with Pyongyang. But that is a misinterpretation. In fact, diplomatic relations were much warmer under the Clinton administration, and America learned nothing of this weapons program. We recall Secretary of State Albright, in particular, partaking in Pyongyang of some of the silliest Communist spectacles. If anything, the North Koreans may have themselves misinterpreted the Bush initiative as an opportunity to commence the same sort of extortion that ended in the last go-around with what Mr. Clinton considered a “good deal.”

All of which is enough to remind us of our favorite example of nuclear nonproliferation policy, Israel’s 1981 bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. Prime Minister Sharon was meeting with President Bush at the White House yesterday, and afterward, Mr. Bush was asked what Israel should do if Iraq attacked the Jewish state with a missile. “If Iraq attacks Israel to morrow, I would assume the Prime Minister would respond. He’s got — he’s got a desire to defend himself,” Mr. Bush said. It’s wonderful to see Mr. Bush recognize this, and put an end to the nonsense of calling on Israel to restrain itself as a way of appeasing such bad actors as the Saudi Arabians and Egyptians. But the danger of waiting for North Korea, Iraq, or Iran to attack Israel, Taiwan, or South Korea — or, for that matter, New York — grows greater with every “disarmament” treaty that relies on international inspectors. Each such treaty gives the Axis powers more time to develop their nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals. Retaliation would be no consolation against such an attack; preemption is required. And the best guarantee of safety is the spread of freedom and democracy — in other words, not disarmament, but regime change.