North Korea is less of a risk to US than Iran: Rep. Brooks

The tensions continue to mount between North Korea and the U.S., but despite concerns the North Korean leadership is a loose cannon, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) suggests it is a ruse.

“They may act crazy but they’re pretty smart, that leadership, as evidenced by them being in power and the way in which they act crazy in order to achieve a rational goal,” Brooks told the FOX Business Network's Connell McShane.

Brooks notes that America has for decades used the mutually-assured destruction doctrine in its national security, he believes that the North Koreans are actually not a major risk.

“The North Korean leaders, they want to live and it’s that incentive to live that I would submit is a deterrent to their actually ever launching a first strike against the United States of America.  They know that they have no missile defense system, they know that we can utterly destroy that nation.”

On the other hand, Brooks suggests Iran is more of a threat because the mutually-assured destruction doctrine would be ineffective.

“A greater risk is not North Korea but it's Iran where you’ve got a people who are driven by a religion that on occasion suggests that it’s okay for them to commit national suicide if they take out Israel, the little satan, and America, the great satan, in the process of committing national suicide.”