Why did the North Koreans detonate a nuclear weapon now? Who benefits from a clear defiance of the United Nations Security Council? What possible gain could North Korea’s utilitarian despot achieve by humiliating his protector, Beijing, by baiting his enabler, Seoul, and by threatening his adversary, America, in defense of its ally Japan?

Answer this question and you can begin to answer the scale of the threat posed by the North Korean test. Answer this question and you begin to see that the Bush administration faces an enemy that is well prepared to beggar commerce, wreck security, and blackmail the Security Council unless it gets what it wants. Answer this question and you will see that the hands on the nuke weapons test are not Korean but Persian.

Recall three months ago, when North Korea raised an intercontinental ballistic missile on the launch pad and taunted Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo for weeks before firing the weapon into the Japan Sea. At the time, Washington was accused of provoking North Korea by refusing to negotiate face-to-face and by spurning North Korea’s demand for an American guarantee not to attack. Madeleine Albright recently called President Bush’s foreign policy a “mess” and said he should have used Bill Clinton as a special negotiator with Pyongyang to defuse the confrontation. Horsefeathers. On July 4, North Korea launched at least seven missiles within a short time span, one of which was a Taepodong-2 missile capable of carrying a miniaturized nuclear warhead, not because Mr. Bush wouldn’t telephone Kim Jong Il’s bunker but because the test was paid for by, and staged for, Tehran.

It has since been confirmed repeatedly not only that several officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards rocket forces were present at the missile launches, but also that the missile test was a complete success. The first wave of media reports — and remember that in war, the first three reports are wrong — declared the Taepodong-2 missile test was a failure because it fell into the Sea of Japan after only 42 seconds. The first media reports also declared that the other smaller missiles, single-stage, short-range Scud types, were fired to mask the Taepodong-2 error. Wrong on all counts. The Iranians paid for the test and intended it to demonstrate a counter strike after an American first strike. North Korean rocket forces were dispersed beforehand in warlike conditions, without communications among the units, exactly as if America had just scored a first-round decapitation. Each rocket brigade then launched one short-range theater missile to accompany the strategic weapon, the Taepodong-2, in order to simulate the mass firing of the arsenal. The missiles all landed within observation of prepositioned trawlers.

The Iranians were delighted. Their agents, the North Koreans, from whom Tehran has bought its missile systems and its nuclear weapons systems, had demonstrated that in the event of the expected American bombing, Tehran would be able to launch weapons in all directions. Tehran also knew that American signals-intelligence watched everything and understood the message.

The remaining component was the nuclear warhead itself. It is logical, and now confirmed, that Iranian agents were present at the test site, since they both ordered and paid for the test. It is logical, though not confirmed, that the agents were the same mix that was present at the July 4 missile exercise, either Pasdaran officers or Iranian Nuclear Energy Agency ops or Iranian intelligence ops, or all of the above. It is logical, though not confirmed, that the same device that was detonated is the miniaturized warhead that Iran needs to mount atop its rebuilt Taepodong-2 missile, a version of which Tehran calls the Shahab-3. It is logical, though not confirmed, that Iran wanted the American national security apparatus to see that the two critical elements in a mutually assured destruction scenario are now in place: a launch-on-warning missile offensive and a nuclear warhead for the outgoing strike.

The U.N. Security Council warned the North Koreans not to fire the nuke or else. The U.N. Security Council warned the Iranians that it must cease enrichment of uranium or else.

The else clock is running. The six-party talks in East Asia to contain Pyongyang are a sham. The European Union talks in Geneva to contain Tehran are a sham. The U.N. Security Council talks in New York to contain the nuclear weapons proliferators are a sham. The only confab to wait out is the Congressional elections. After that, and regardless of how much noise the appeasers make in the House of Representatives, the fleet sails to defend America and enforce civilization.

Mr. Batchelor is host of “The John Batchelor Show,” now on hiatus.