Trump strikes Iran's nuclear program but soothes North Korea? Victor Cha calls it a "reasonable approach, not a double standard"

[Financial News] Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said President Donald Trump's contrasting approach to the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea is "reasonable" because it acknowledges that the two countries face very different nuclear nonproliferation challenges.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post (WP) on the 19th, Cha explained, "President Trump has taken a hard-line, absolute stance that Iran must never possess nuclear weapons, while adopting a pragmatic and compromise-based approach to North Korea through negotiations and threat reduction." He added, "Calling this a double standard is not appropriate. Given the circumstances surrounding the two nuclear programs, different approaches are reasonable."
Cha said the reason is that "Iran's nuclear program is still at an early stage, and its related facilities are located at known sites that could be targeted in a preemptive strike, whereas North Korea's weapons development has already progressed to the point of no return." He explained, "Because it already has about 60 nuclear weapons, fissile material for roughly 30 more, and several types of delivery systems, it cannot be resolved through complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization (CVID)."
Cha also said that "the effectiveness of sanctions is different as well," adding that "in Iran's case, there is still international support for economic sanctions, but China and Russia are fully backing North Korea, making UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea effectively useless." He continued, "Different approaches are decisively supported by key U.S. allies," and noted that "progressive South Korean President Lee Jae-myung does not want military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, so he welcomes Trump's diplomatic efforts."
Cha said, "The U.S. attack on Iran likely strengthened North Korea's belief that its own nuclear weapons can deter American military power." He added, "North Korea may have been encouraged by the fact that the United States failed to completely destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities."
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