EMBARRASSED OVER the catch-and-release affair involving a Scud-bearing freighter in the Arabian Sea this week, the Bush administration yesterday learned the unpleasant -- but not wholly unexpected -- news that North Korea is planning to reactivate a nuclear power plant that could be used to produce material for nuclear bombs.

So where do you prefer your blackmail? At sea in the Middle East, or on land on the Korean peninsula?

North Korea is being unashamedly provocative on two fronts: It's dealing in Scud missiles with several of the world's more dicey regimes (some of them putative U.S. allies), and it's pursuing its own nuclear weaponry. Does Washington want to see Scuds falling into the wrong hands? No? Would it rather see nukes falling on Tokyo?

At one time it seemed that North Korea could be prodded and cajoled into getting along. The Clinton administration won an agreement under which North Korea shut down the suspect power plant in return for new, U.S.-built reactors and an interim infusion of 500,000 tons of oil a year.

For eight years it seemed to be working -- but now we know that, all along, North Korea was still actively engaged in a secret nuclear weapons program and was trading missiles for cash or technology with such countries as Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Libya and Syria. And Yemen, too.

Yemen is where the USS Cole was attacked. It's where Osama bin Laden is popularly regarded as something of a hero. But it's also where the government allowed the United States to obliterate a car this year because of the bad guys who were inside it. So that made them allies.

On Monday, the Spanish navy seized a ship flying no flag, carrying no identifying marks and bearing 15 North Korean Scud missiles, buried under bags of cement. Then the Yemenis said it was a legitimate deal. That, frankly, was hard to swallow -- but Washington swallowed and now the missiles are on their way again.

Keeping Yemen on America's side was evidently more important than worrying about where those Scuds might someday land -- and also more important than teaching North Korea a lesson.

Yesterday, in any case, North Korea announced that, with the oil shipments now cut off, it would have to put its old reactors back on line, to produce electricity, of course. It's all a little bit for show because, for one thing, the country may already have a nuke or two.

But what a show. North Korea seems intent on being noticed, and is succeeding admirably. If not for Iraq, it might even be tempting to suggest North Korea has made itself into the world's biggest headache.