North Korea, that isolated Stalinist nation ruled by a stunted little gargoyle with bad hair from a long line of stunted little gargoyles with bad hair, has rejected what many saw as an overture from President Trump intended to thaw relations with the Norks and the United States. President Trump has announced he was scaling back on the 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises with South Korea, noting that the North Koreans found them to be provocative. Well, the North Koreans also think that the suggestion that they not run their entire country like a prison camp is provocative as well, so we should consider the source.
Now, though, the regime has responded. The statement from Pyongyang comes not from the dictator Kim Jong Un, as we might have expected, but rather from his sister, Kim Yo Jong.
North Korea said Wednesday that a U.S. decision to scale back military exercises with South Korea does not change what it sees as the provocative nature of the drills, dampening hopes for an early resumption of diplomacy between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made the comments Wednesday night in her country’s first reaction to Trump’s moves to drastically cut back the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills.
“We think it’s not worth making comments on that and we have no interest in it at all,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. “The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”
She also cited a series of other military drills carried out by the U.S. and South Korea earlier this year and South Korea’s push to introduce nuclear-powered submarines.
Well, I guess we see now who wears the pants in that dictatorship. My colleague Teri Christoph covered President Trump's initial overtures on Sunday; you can read that here.
Those of us who remember the Cold War will recognize the language here. This is standard for communist dictatorships when any part of the free world makes an overture; they act disdainful of any gesture, hoping to gain "face" and establish the pecking order before any real talks begin. And President Trump has already signaled his willingness to talk to the North Koreans, noting correctly that they are a nuclear power; the whole western Pacific isn't very happy about that, but it's too late to do much about it.
President Trump has said he would meet with Kim Jong Un yet this year. And there's an object lesson here:
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year.
Trump did not elaborate further about the trip. His remarks came as he was walking reporters around the White House grounds to highlight his new helipad.
“He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” Trump said, referring to Kim Jong Un’s arsenal. “Should have never allowed it to happen, they should never have allowed it – if I were president, I never would have allowed it.”
Ay, that's the rub. North Korea, like it or not, is a nuclear power. That means that the Norks get a certain deference, a different standard of treatment, than non-nuclear powers. They aren't quite so easy to push around, not when they have the ability to start tossing hot rocks around the western Pacific rim, say, at places like Guam, or Saipan - or Tokyo. That's the position Iran will be in if they are ever allowed to gain nuclear weapons.
North Korea occupies a strange place in today's geopolitical world. It's a Stalinist dictatorship, a communist country that is inexplicably ruled by what is basically a hereditary monarchy. And they have nuclear weapons. South Korea's capital city, Seoul, is also within artillery range of North Korea, being only about 15-20 kilometers from the DMZ; and North Korea has guns and rocket launchers with a range of about 60 kilometers, meaning that a massed barrage would kill millions. This is a case where talk, talk may be better than war, war; and if Iran ever gains a nuclear weapon, that will put them in a similar position.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are once again respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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