With North Korea's substantial nuclear arsenal and improved intercontinental ballistic missile capability, the world has no choice but to tolerate its illegitimate possession of nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang will never give up its nukes, which it considers essential for regime survival. Nor can they be eliminated without a massive pre-emptive attack that would invite catastrophic counterattacks against both South Korea and Japan.

The United Nations Security Council has just passed a resolution to impose additional, more stringent sanctions on North Korea. But these penalties fall short of a full oil embargo and other "super sanctions" that might immediately jeopardize the regime's survival and force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons. The country is believed to possess not only adequate oil reserves for one year but also limited oil refining capability.