Is Iran studying North Korea's nuclear moves?

"You can only do so much testing on the ground, so I'm sure there are military pressures in North Korea to prove the design of this missile," he says. Besides that, he adds, "You enhance your deterrence by demonstrating your capability."

Pyongyang may also be trying to enhance its leverage with the US and others in stalled six-party talks on its nuclear program. For example, Einhorn says, the North Koreans may think they've found a way, with the threat of a missile launch, to press the US into dropping punitive measures it has successfully imposed on the North's financial operations.

While Einhorn says there is no direct evidence of any kind of learning relationship between Pyongyang and Tehran, he does believe it stands to reason that the two would watch each other.

"I wouldn't be surprised if [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and other hard-liners in the regime say, 'Why do we back down at the last minute, when you look at the North Koreans and see that they make a threat and carry through – and on the whole that has not been a losing approach for them?' "

Others say that Tehran may indeed be following the Pyongyang playbook – but just as much to see what not to do.

"It's hard to believe the Iranians would put themselves in the same category as the North Koreans. There are so many differences between them," says Paul Kerr, a nonproliferation expert at the Arms Control Association in Washington.

Iranian officials, including national security adviser Hassan Rohani, have indicated in speeches given in recent years that Tehran has studied the cases of North Korea, Iraq, and Libya. "The suggestion is they have opted for some kind of middle ground," says Mr. Kerr.

Above all, Tehran has a much higher level of diplomatic and economic exchange with the world, he says, and would not aspire to Pyongyang's isolation. And North Korea has nothing like the sea of oil that Iran sits atop.

But what Tehran and Pyongyang certainly have in common, Kerr says, is a preoccupation with the idea that what the US really wants is regime change. And with both countries remaining fixations of the Bush administration, it is likely that the two watch each other for pointers on successfully maneuvering with the US.

Indeed, the US, by turning North Korea's missile-launch preparations into a major international confrontation, may be giving both countries an unintended lesson in how to provoke the US, says Mr. Pollack of the Naval War College.

"What North Korea is up to is not as obscure as people make it out to be, if you realize that what they want most of all is a response from us," he says.

Pollack says the test-launch controversy – which elicited more immediate response from Mr. Bush and other top administration officials than some North Korean actions – reflects the "tool kit" that Pyongyang employs to try to reach its real objective, which is direct talks with the US.

Given Tehran's interest in the same objective, he says Iran is certainly watching Pyongyang's success or failure as it weighs its own response to international entreaties on its nuclear program – which include the promise of talks with the US.

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