Focused Read in 2-3 minutes
"With few cards to play,
does Kim Jong Un hold the trumps?
(By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, April 23, 2018)
PRESIDENT TRUMP fancies himself the master negotiator, but he may
have met his match in Kim Jong Un.
The North Korean dictator has
demonstrated a brazen disregard for global norms, an embrace of
high-stakes risks to enter the nuclear club and eliminate threats to
his power,
and an uncanny ability to fashion a diplomatic silk purse
of a summit from a sow’s ear of outcast status.
(Emphasis is mine.)
... ignoring all that came before him in
Republican and Democratic administrations — the president has
claimed credit for reanimating negotiations with North
Korea while apparently not hearing or heeding hard-learned
lessons...
As much as Trump’s threats of military force, his
playground goading of Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” and his
pressure on China to increase and enforce UN sanctions may have
pressured Kim,
it’s as easy to argue that Kim forced Trump to the
negotiating table with relentless testing that proved he can threaten
the US with a nuclear warhead.
(Emphasis is mine.)
For a guy with few cards
to play, Kim sure knows how to play them.
With a summit between South
Korean President Moon Jae-in and the North Korean leader looming this
Friday,
Kim has parlayed a hand of twos and fours into meetings with
China’s and South Korea’s presidents,
a Korean presidential
hotline,
a possible discussion of a peace treaty,
and a summit with
the most powerful leader in the world.
After NBC’s Chuck
Todd suggested that Kim has given up very little and made it
seem like a lot, Trump erupted on Twitter Sunday. “Wow,
we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to
denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more
testing!” he fumed.
There’s one problem with
Trump’s statement: It’s not true.
Kim is the first North Korean
leader to secure a long-coveted equal-footing meeting with a US
leader; a summit is big “give” from the United States before
getting any concessions.
(Emphasis is mine.)
Second, while the North Koreans indicated to
the South Koreans (and perhaps to CIA director Mike Pompeo, who made
a secret trip) they’d consider denuclearization, they haven’t
agreed to anything.
... As far as we know,
Pyongyang and Washington haven’t even agreed on the definition of
denuclearization.
“What Kim means and what Trump means are two
different things,” Wendy Sherman, a former undersecretary of state
who was North Korea policy coordinator under Bill Clinton, said in an
interview.
“What we mean is Kim’s nuclear arsenal, but in the
past, North Korea has tried to put the entire security architecture
of northeast Asia on the table,” including the removal of US
military forces and treaties that keep the South and Japan protected
under our nuclear umbrella.
As for announcing a halt
to testing, Kim has proved he’s nuclear capable and had stopped
testing anyway.
... The North has conceded
nothing yet, and the question is: In exchange for the verifiable,
irreversible denuclearization we want, what does Kim want in return?
The last time the North
negotiated, “they asked for energy and economic assistance, a peace
treaty and cross-recognition of states. They tried to end our
military exercises in South Korea..." (Ambassador Chris Hill, a former assistant secretary of state who, in the George W. Bush administration, was the last US official to lead formal talks with North Korea)
Hill fears two things
could go terribly wrong. Trump could storm out, leaving us closer to
the brink of war. Orstart..."agreeing to something
he can’t do" ...
That’s the risk with the
“Reykjavik approach” in which leaders... hammer out a deal...“the base camp
option”is safer, in which aides do the legwork for a perilous
summit, nailing down agreements beforehand. (Kurt Campbell, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia)
The Trump team knows the
president might give something valuable away. But implementing the
base camp approach is hard when all the North Korea experts at the
State Department have gone, including a three-decade veteran who
announced his retirement in February. Trump has still not named an
ambassador to South Korea. ... "
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Eleanor Roosevelt with female reporters
at her first White House press conference
on March 6, 1933.
“ … At first Eleanor Roosevelt adhered to her own...political topics. She told about her daily schedules, discussed the prints on the White House Walls, and shared low-cost menus for Depression-era households. But reporters pressed the First Lady for more news on public policy, and the press conference sessions soon broadened their scope. As early as April 1933 Eleanor Roosevelt provided a political scoop; she announced that beer would be served in the White House once Prohibition ended. By the end of 1933, according to UP reporter Ruby Black, the First Lady had defended low cost housing, the subsistence homestead program, equal pay for equal work, old age pensions, and the minimum wage. “Tea Pouring Items Give Way to Big News,” Black declared. “No newspaperwoman could have asked for better luck,” reporter Bess Furman recalled. The First Lady, she wrote, “conducts classes on scores of subjects, always seeing beyond her immediate hearers to ‘the women of the country.’” … “ ( You can read more here )
( #its2018now )
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Curated by Gail Mountain, with occasional personal commentary, Network For #StrongerTogether ! is not affiliated with The Democratic Party in any capacity. This is an independent blog and the hope is you will, at a glance, learn more about the Party and you will, with a click or two, also take action on its behalf as it is provided!
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