On Fox News last night, Charles Krauthammer offered the opinion that most of the trouble from North Korea comes as a result of the Chinese using them as a cat’s-paw to frustrate American foreign policy in Asia, and the best way to handle North Korea’s nuclear ambitions is to up the ante by encouraging South Korea and Japan to become nuclear powers.

This, of course, was a discussion held before war broke out on the island of Yeonpyeong, close to the border. It seems the South Koreans, who have a military base on the island, were conducting artillery exercises and the North used those as a pretext to fire on the base, killing two and injuring dozens. The South retaliated with artillery of their own.

Tensions are at their highest point since the armistice was signed in 1953. After all, the South is still fuming over the North having torpedoed one of their ships and killed 46 sailors earlier this year.

A renewed real war on the Korean peninsula seems almost inevitable, as North Korea is in the midst of a succession crisis and Kim Jong-Un, son of current leader Kim Jong-Il, is supposedly currying favor with military hardliners.

It’s not really the right time to have an incompetent left-wing ideologue in the White House. But that’s what we have.

Time for a prayer or two.