This is the wild East, the lands of merciless, pillaging aggressors: Arabs, Persians, Turkmens, Mongols, Mandarins. and Kims, warrior horsemen all. It is not for nothing that the white-hatted riders of the wild West have drawn a bead on the lot of them and are galloping full tilt in their direction. The showdown has begun.

Do you really believe that North Korea just happened to pick this holiday season to visit the West with gifts of nuclear sugarplums? No Magi these, just a kleptocratic conspiracy of wise guys from the dark side of the planet. Face it, North Korea's latest WMD gambit is postmarked Iraq. The Butcher of Baghdad shot an arrow into the air, and it fell to earth you know where -- in Pyonyang. Kim Jong Il is just shilling for Saddam to divert our attention in a global game of Three-Card Monty.

What to do? If, as experts have testified, Pyongyang already has a couple of nukes and may soon have a handful more, this threat must be taken seriously. A container of "rice crackers" could vaporize the Oakland Bay Bridge. Are the American people demanding a diplomatic solution? Hardly. They just want the spooks and the soldiers to take care of business, with no fingerprints or semen stains left behind, no questions asked.

If only State, CIA, and DOD spoke the same language great things would be possible. Since tinhorn dictators like Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il and Fidel Castro are basically in it for the money, why not leverage their exit with options and derivatives? Buy Saddam a nice little island -- say Cyprus -- and set him up with his own lucrative theme park, a magnet for hedonists and S&M thrill seekers everywhere; he might want to call it SodomLand. Then offer Kim Jong Il double - no triple, or more -- whatever Al Qaeda is willing to pay for his plutonium. Send Fidel out to pasture as the figurehead of a consortium of campesino casinos ("Poker to the People!"). We can undoubtedly get shady Cuban exiles to bankroll the project. Don't build levees, drain the swamp.

Stir yourself, America! You're facing the most serious and organized adversaries you have ever encountered, and all you can do is threaten mayhem, as if deploying robot zombies on steroids will solve the problem of evil. Despite its videogame appeal, this isn't the American way, and you know it. After all, America gets its way by buying up whomever is ready to sell out. Be creative, be bold, be opportunistic, but don't be suicidal. Spend your assets wisely, don't blow them off. Bet on the bottom line. Seize up the Evil Axis by lubricating a path to temptation that the Devil himself wouldn't be able to resist. Make deals, take a few hits if you have to, but keep a big stick in your back pocket. And don't sit down.