OK With Nukes in North Korea?
Terry H. Schwadron
July 3, 2019
Drama over stepping 20 paces into North Korea aside, the word is that the White House is toying with an idea of allowing North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons, and freezing current development in return for lifting some U.S. sanctions against rogue nation.
Essentially, it is a plan to get agreement about Something, even if it is not what the United States or the rest of the world wants. Such an approach would acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear nation.
Reporting by The New York Times about the building, old-is-new approach to dealing with North Korea was prompting a lot of television punditry about whether the idea is crafty or loony. Whatever else one might conclude about it, it is based almost solely on Donald Trump’s view of personal diplomacy as the basis for international agreements.
With one eye on the 2020 elections, Trump seems to be growing desperate in search of a Big Win that would be widely recognized and celebrated. Whether the Win is in American economic dominance, a Wall that ends (as if) illegal immigration, a breakthrough in cancer or with halting nuclear development in North Korea and Iran, a Win is important. A win in North Korea might even be worth a Nobel Prize for Trump , goes the thinking.
Of course, there is such a thing as reality, and, in the end, North Korea is not giving up its nuclear weapons, Iran is telling Trump his ham-handedness is not wanted in their national business, China is anything but helpful in making tariffs and trade war talk seem reasonable, and our Southern border has become an unruly mess that reeks of cruelty to children and displaced families.
Nations like South Korea and Japan, who clearly are within reach of North Korean missiles, should be bristling over a possible U.S. deal based on freeze.
“The concept would amount to a nuclear freeze, one that essentially enshrines the status quo, and tacitly accepts the North as a nuclear power, something administration officials have often said they would never stand for,” said The Times. “It falls far short of Trump’s initial vow 30 months ago to solve the North Korea nuclear problem, but it might provide him with a retort to campaign-season critics who say the North Korean dictator has been playing the American president brilliantly by giving him the visuals he craves while holding back on real concessions.”
North Korea had agreed to give up on one nuclear assembly plant, but did not want to discuss others — in fact, was surprised that U.S. intelligence knew about them — or to abandon its missiles or other weapons systems. The great bulk of nuclear development North Korea is in those other plants, and it is unlikely that North Korea would ever agree to extend the various definitional issues involved to make sure that they too were frozen in current development.
The one bright spot about the freeze idea is that it further erodes the political standing of John Bolton as National Security Adviser. Bolton, of course, is the guy who basically sees the most aggressive action as the answer to any international prompt, backing war in Iran and the most stringent position in North Korea.
Such a freeze concept had been rejected earlier by both Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo.
At their second summit Hanoi, both North Korea and the United States walked away from negotiations that had gone badly, and harsh words followed until leader Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump exchanged new bro-love letters, and Trump, in Asia, offered to drop by the DMZ.
Indeed, the freeze approach has been tried previously by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Barack Obama essentially got a similar deal with Iran — a deal that Trump finds disastrous. Among other things, Trump managed another public lie about Obama this week, insisting that Obama had begged Kim for a personal meeting and was denied repeatedly, whereas he, Trump, is so wonderful that Kim can’t resist friendship with him. Obama never sought a meeting with Kim.
From the other side of the world, Iranian officials must be looking at the scene at the DMZ and wondering why dealing with Trump is so strange. He can’t even sustain his role as serious enemy. What is there in these U.S.-North Korean forays that makes dealing with the United States look to be a credible negotiation?
If you are a European ally looking at all this, aren’t you wondering why Trump cannot focus, cannot do his homework before the photo op?
If you work for Trump, how do you know that today’s program is worthwhile when compared with what passed as strategy last week?
The White House insists that total de-nuclearization remains the goal. But the U.S. sanctions are not bringing that outcome to bear. Trump insists that he is patient, and that the outcome needs to be right, not quick. On the other hand, it is 16 months to the next election, and that won’t wait, whether the outcome is right or wrong.
No wonder Trump just wants adulation.
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