En attendant l'apocalypse

VLADIMIR:
Say you are, even if it's not true.
ESTRAGON:
What am I to say?
VLADIMIR:
Say, I am happy.
ESTRAGON:
I am happy.
VLADIMIR:
So am I.
ESTRAGON:
So am I.
VLADIMIR:
We are happy.
ESTRAGON:
We are happy. (Silence.) What do we do now, now that we are happy?
VLADIMIR:
Wait for Godot. (Estragon groans. Silence.) Things have changed here since yesterday.
ESTRAGON:
And if he doesn't come?
VLADIMIR:
(after a moment of bewilderment). We'll see when the time comes. (Pause.) I was saying that things have changed here since yesterday.
ESTRAGON:
Everything oozes.
VLADIMIR:
Look at the tree.
ESTRAGON:
It's never the same pus from one second to the next.
VLADIMIR:
The tree, look at the tree.
Estragon looks at the tree.
ESTRAGON:
Was it not there yesterday?
VLADIMIR:
Yes of course it was there. Do you not remember? We nearly hanged ourselves from it. But you wouldn't. Do you not remember?

Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot

A lavish new production of En attendant Godot starring

Kim Jong Il as Estragon
George W. Bush as Vladimir
Tony Blair can as Pozzo
Vladimir Putin as Lucky
Someone recommended by Mark Foley as the boy

This is to greet the news that North Korea exploded what they have called their "happy bomb" yesterday. No matter how this drama now plays itself out the world is clearly different today.

No one, outside of North Korea (and then, I suspect, only a few of them), is happy about this. The question out there is "what will the world do?" or perhaps "what CAN the world do". This is probably the final nail in the coffin of the Non-proliferation Treaty. Its success has only been marginal in any case as Israel, India and Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons during its lifetime. Now North Korea officially enters the club and Iran has submitted an application. Other nations (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Brazil will probably consider whether they need to join. An atomic weapons programme may become the "must have" accessory for an emerging state in the first half of the 21st century. Some flint and an old knife could the "must have" for the second half.

What will Bush and his assorted zealots wish to do? The Voice of America doesn't predict a military response but then the military isn't making the decisions. Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld are.

Is anyone feeling optimistic today?

UPDATE: More analysis from the Council on Foriegn Relations.