North Korea is threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea.  The threat came just hours before the United Nations was scheduled to meet on tough new sanctions that would further isolate the North Korean regime.

A statement read on the state news service said the U.N. sanctions are tantamount to an “act of war” and that Pyongyang would turn Washington and South Korea into a “sea of flames” with its “lighter and smaller nukes”.

An attack on the United States would be suicidal and few observers expect one.  But Seoul is concerned the North will do something stupid to test the resolve of South Korea’s Park Geun-hye, the peninsula’s first female president and daughter of a former military ruler.  And they’re concerned that the North’s inexperienced Kim Jung-Un is overconfident because of the recent successful nuclear tests.