North Korea is surrounded by nations that are either far more powerful than it is (China, Russia, Japan) or allied with powerful nations (South Korea). It has no one that is a threat to it that can not clean its clock if they desired. So if it used a nuke it would be toasted in short order.
As far as conventional war, there too it has limited options. It can not beat SK/JAPAN/USA and the issue of getting help from China or Russia is questionable. The best move it can make is to do nothing.
Iran on the other hand is surrounded by nations that have limited military power. While it could make a move on them, the UN response in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait is a clue that it would not be allowed to keep anything they took in an invasion. However, it is one of those nations that has many internal problems and one way that you deal with internal problems is to develop an enemy that unifies everyone.
Napoleon used wars with other nations, the Germans used the Jews and Iran is using the USA and Israel as threats. The bad part of it is Israel and the USA are feeding into it with sanctions and threats of military action. IMO that is the wrong response.
First, the USA has imposed some new sanctions. It should stop there. It should stop talking about Iran all the time and simply say that the Gulf will be kept open.
No more banging of drums about Iran's nuclear issues, no more sanctions, no more nightly news about Iran. Just shut up. Then let Iran try to beat the drums with the USA not doing a thing, not saying a thing.
It will be very hard for the leaders of Iran to keep their people unified when the USA is talking about Venezuela all the time, or the economy all the time and hardly ever mentions Iran. With no external enemy even talking about them, the leaders are going to have to deal with their internal problems, which is unhappiness about the way the nation is going.
It won't be a "world war" in the same sense the Great War and WWII were (fighting around the globe and/or involving all the major countries). It will be limited in area (Middle East if Iran gets stupid, or the peninsula if Kim Jong-un starts acting up), and won't go nuclear. Probably.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.