Brinksmanship Down

Friday's expected UN Security Council resolution on North Korea is expected to raise the stakes, calling for increased sanctions and inspections of imports. North Korea is expected to respond to the vote as early as this weekend by throwing another nuke test hissy fit.

U.S. intelligence officials have warned President Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the looming passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week -- condemning the communist country for its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests -- with another nuclear test, FOX News has learned.

What's more, Pyongyang's next nuclear detonation is but one of four planned actions the Central Intelligence Agency has learned, through sources inside North Korea, that the regime of Kim Jong-Il intends to take -- but not announce -- once the Security Council resolution is officially passed, likely on Friday.

The other three actions include the reprocessing of all of the North's spent plutonium fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium; a major escalation in the North's uranium-enrichment program; and the launching of another Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile from the Yunsong military complex on the west coast of North Korea. The North last launched a Taepodong-2 on April 5; it conducted its second nuclear test in the last three years on Memorial Day.

The intelligence community only learned of North Korea's plans this week, prompting CIA to alert senior officials. Asked who would be briefed on this kind of data, a source told FOX News: "The top people: POTUS, DNI." "POTUS" is acronym for the president of the United States; "DNI" refers to the director of the Office of National Intelligence.

We'll see where this goes. At some point Obama will have to deal with North Korea on a serious one-on-one basis. The good news is even China is willing to listen to the consept of increased sanctions on Pyongyang at this point, as they are just as worried about Kim Jong-Il as the rest of the world. Russia too sees North Korea as a serious threat to their western borders.

All this temper tantrum action may actually galvanize the world to do something.