2/28/19: I think we can all agree that President Trump is having a lousy day. He flew all the way to Hanoi to work some “Art of the Deal” magic. He was going to “denuclearize” North Korea once and for all. This was a mere formality, of course, since he announced last summer that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat. Now he returns with nothing to show for his trip. North Korea still has all the nuclear weapons it had last week and more than it had last summer.
Evidence indicates the North may have been running a key reactor and producing additional plutonium while Trump and Kim Jong-un were sitting for dinner in Hanoi. According to multiple reports, including one from Fox News, Kim Jong-un may possess sixty nuclear weapons.
Normally, I wouldn’t blame any president for this kind of failure. I don’t blame U.S. leaders when they can’t resolve the intractable Israeli/Palestinian issue. I don’t blame Mr. Trump now, save for the fact that he has been insufferable when commenting on his predecessor’s deal with Iran. He has called that deal “insane,” “defective to its core,” “an embarrassment” and “the worst deal ever made.”
Now Trump, Trump supporters, and Republicans generally, may finally grasp how hard it is to get any kind of deal done with any foreign power in pursuit of nuclear weapons. It would be too much to ask, of course, for anyone from that side to admit that the deal with Iran kept that foreign foe from getting nuclear weapons for two terms of office when President Obama was in charge. Iran abides by most of the terms today. Trump insists he’s “in no rush” to get North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal – which is really admitting he doesn’t know what to do.
POSTSCRIPT: Meanwhile, Trump offers up
sickening praise for Kim and insists the head of a reflexively repressive
police state could not be blamed for the brutal mistreatment and eventual death
of Otto Warmbier, a young American held by North Korean police for over a year.
(See: March 1, 2019.)
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