SEOUL -- It looks as if U.S. Tomahawk missiles aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have also spooked the "Great Leader" of North Korea's hunger-stricken regime. Kim Jong Il, chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea, remained hidden from public view for 44 days, after he visited the Russian Embassy on Feb. 12. That broke his previous record of hermitlike behavior, which was 35 days.

Kim didn't even bother showing up at the recent annual Supreme People's Assembly meeting -- something he had made sure of attending for straight five years since 1998. That's where high-level members gather around to discuss the national budget and introduce new laws. Also absent were National Defense Commission first vice chairman Jo Myong Rok and Army Gen. Kim Yong Chun.

It doesn't take a genius to guess what's going on amid the war in Iraq. The campaign to unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein directly concerns the fate of North Korea. When U.S. President George W. Bush pushed on with his war plans despite vehement popular opposition throughout the world, he had just one thing on his mind: Hussein was a dictator who amassed weapons of mass destruction, and it is better to crush an evil regime sooner than wait to be provoked later. The campaign was in accord with other U.S. interests as well.