MILITARY options against North Korea cannot be ruled out, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Mr Howard today said North Korea's "seriously crazy regime" was a huge problem for the whole world following its first nuclear weapons test this week. He said world leaders until last week hoped China's historic influence on the rogue state would restrain it, but it did not seem to be the case."Now I do hope the world can speak through the United Nations with one voice," Mr Howard said. "But the options in a situation like this are limited.
"Nobody wants to look at military options, you can't take them off the table, you never do that, that's foolish.
"Nobody really wants to look at that as an option but they are very limited and we are dealing with a seriously crazy regime."
Mr Howard denied it was hypocritical for US President George W Bush to invade Iraq over claims of weapons of mass destruction, but prefer the UN to deal with North Korea, despite proof it had such weapons. "I don't think it's hypocritical," he said. "I think he is doing, sensibly, what his critics said he should have done further in Iraq – and that is, fully exhaust the United Nations route.
"That doesn't mean to say the United Nations route is going to work."
Mr Howard said the UN's ability to intervene in Iraq had been exhausted and the coalition had no alternative but to invade. "I believed at the time, as did everybody, that there were weapons of mass destruction," he said. "The debate was about how you reacted to the existence of those weapons of mass destruction, not about whether they existed or not."
Meanwhile, Mr Howard said Australia gave North Korea some food aid, and he did not want to see it cut off. He said the country would receive more aid if it dropped its nuclear ambitions.
The comments came after Mr Bush vowed earlier today to use "all diplomatic efforts" possible to resolve the North Korean and Iranian nuclear standoffs, but said the option of military action remained on the table. "I believe the commander-in-chief must try all diplomatic efforts before we commit our military," Mr Bush said when asked about his administration's failure to get either Pyongyang or Tehran to give up their nuclear programs via negotiations.
"Diplomacy hasn't run its course, and we'll continue working to give diplomacy a full opportunity to succeed," he said. While repeatedly insisting that his government "remains committed" to multilateral diplomacy, he said the United States also "reserves all options", particularly to "defend our friends and our interests in the region against threats from North Korea".