North Korea: Plan to Fire Missile Toward Hawaii

North Korea has a special event planned for the 4th of July.

Sometime between July 4-8, the country will launch a missile toward Hawaii.

This isn't the first time that North Korea just happened to do a missile test that coincided with Independence Day. It happened in 2006.

This launch will be different from the 2006 test. It's directed at the United States.

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea may launch a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program.

The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan's top-selling newspaper. It cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said.

While the newspaper speculated the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, it said the missile would not be able to hit Hawaii's main islands, which are about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

...U.S. officials have said the North has been preparing to fire a long-range missile capable of striking the western U.S. In Washington on Tuesday, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would take at least three to five years for North Korea to pose a real threat to the U.S. west coast.

President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met in Washington on Tuesday for a landmark summit in which they agreed to build a regional and global "strategic alliance" to persuade North Korea to dismantle all its nuclear weapons. Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced.

The independent International Crisis Group think tank, meanwhile, said the North's massive stockpile of chemical weapons is no less serious a threat to the region than its nuclear arsenal.

It said the North is believed to have between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, phosgene, blood agents and sarin. These weapons can be delivered with ballistic missiles and long-range artillery and are "sufficient to inflict massive civilian casualties on South Korea."

Maybe Obama can charm the North Koreans into giving up their nuclear ambitions and their chemical weapons.

Maybe a Cairo-style "Pyongyang Speech" is in order. Maybe North Korea will reconsider firing a missile toward Hawaii.

After the speech, maybe Obama and Michelle could have a date night in North Korea. The North Koreans won't be able to resist the starpower of the Obamas, right?

Date Night Diplomacy is worth a shot.