as Mr Trump continues to march down the list of campaign promises
-Geaux
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Trump Plans to Win Nuclear Deal With North Korea – While Killing One With Iran
Last week, Donald Trump decided, on a whim, to accept Kim Jong-un’s invitation to come by for some “nuclear talks and chill.” The critical response to the president’s decision has fallen into two (somewhat overlapping) categories:
Trump has no idea what he is doing, a history of being swooned by authoritarian leaders’ attempts at flattery, and few (if any) experts on North Korea among his White House staff.
North Korea’s track record shows that its word cannot be trusted.
Both of these concerns have merit, and constitute obstacles to reaching an effective nuclear agreement with Pyongyang. But the American media’s emphasis on the latter point can seem a tad myopic, when it isn’t accompanied by an acknowledgement of the United States’ less-than-pristine record of honoring nuclear agreements with rogue regimes.
To take just one recent example: In 2003, Muammar Qaddafi took the U.S. up on its “denuclearization for security” deal — only to be tortured and killed eight years later by rebels whom the U.S. government had backed. It would not be irrational for Kim to look at this precedent and conclude that his tyrannical regime is more secure with weapons of mass destruction, than it would be without them. Thus, if Trump is to convince Kim to relinquish his nuclear arsenal, he’s going to have to find a way to reestablish America’s diplomatic credibility.
Instead, he is planning to do the very opposite.
For the moment, the White House is preparing for the president to meet with Kim sometime in May – and the president is (reportedly) preparing to kill America’s nuclear agreement with Iran that same month. As Axios reports:
Trump Plans to Win Nuclear Deal With North Korea — While Killing One With Iran
-Geaux
--
Trump Plans to Win Nuclear Deal With North Korea – While Killing One With Iran
Last week, Donald Trump decided, on a whim, to accept Kim Jong-un’s invitation to come by for some “nuclear talks and chill.” The critical response to the president’s decision has fallen into two (somewhat overlapping) categories:
Trump has no idea what he is doing, a history of being swooned by authoritarian leaders’ attempts at flattery, and few (if any) experts on North Korea among his White House staff.
North Korea’s track record shows that its word cannot be trusted.
Both of these concerns have merit, and constitute obstacles to reaching an effective nuclear agreement with Pyongyang. But the American media’s emphasis on the latter point can seem a tad myopic, when it isn’t accompanied by an acknowledgement of the United States’ less-than-pristine record of honoring nuclear agreements with rogue regimes.
To take just one recent example: In 2003, Muammar Qaddafi took the U.S. up on its “denuclearization for security” deal — only to be tortured and killed eight years later by rebels whom the U.S. government had backed. It would not be irrational for Kim to look at this precedent and conclude that his tyrannical regime is more secure with weapons of mass destruction, than it would be without them. Thus, if Trump is to convince Kim to relinquish his nuclear arsenal, he’s going to have to find a way to reestablish America’s diplomatic credibility.
Instead, he is planning to do the very opposite.
For the moment, the White House is preparing for the president to meet with Kim sometime in May – and the president is (reportedly) preparing to kill America’s nuclear agreement with Iran that same month. As Axios reports:
Trump Plans to Win Nuclear Deal With North Korea — While Killing One With Iran
