4/30/18: Today might be a good day to give Trump credit for movement in relations with North Korea. President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Kim Jong-un have met to discuss ending a state of war that has existed since 1950. Kim is talking about denuclearizing the peninsula.
Naturally, Trump and his supporters believe this proves the president is the greatest leader ever. At a rally over the weekend the audience chanted, “Nobel, Nobel.” Still, it’s hard to imagine Trump – who often talks cavalierly about touching off nuclear war – ever receiving the Peace Prize.
____________________
Iran has
no nuclear weapons. North Korea does.
____________________
Of course, the president had to be a dick in discussing such matters. First, he insisted he shouldn’t have been left to deal with North Korea, as if he wanted to be elected president, but didn’t want to have to handle complicated problems. Mostly, he wanted to talk about his greatness, a greatness that rested on the many impressive skills of his great self. He would solve the North Korean nuclear puzzle when no one else could. “The United States has been played beautifully, like a fiddle, because you had a different kind of a leader,” Trump said. “We’re not going to be played, okay? We’re going to hopefully make a deal. If we don’t, that’s fine. The United States in the past was played like a fiddle.” (See: 12/24-25/18; 12/8/19.)
Trump couldn’t just admit that previous administrations faced difficulties too. North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon when George W. Bush was in office. Pressure to force the North to halt testing failed because neither China nor Russia would back the U.S. up. North Korean missile tests while Obama was in charge increased the danger. Tough economic sanctions were imposed. China remained unhelpful. So long as China traded with the North, sanctions failed.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration managed to put in place crippling sanctions on Iran. By 2015, Iran had enough enriched uranium to build an estimated 8-10 atomic bombs and the skill and capacity to build its first bomb in 2-3 months. In the face of danger, China, Russia, Great Britain, France, and Germany signed on along with the United States for a deal to end sanctions in return for Iranian agreement not to pursue a nuclear weapons program for ten years. Iran shipped 98% of its enriched uranium to Russia. The Iranians agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor facilities to ensure compliance. The IAEA has consistently reported – fiddles aside – that Iran has abided by the agreement.
Iran has no nuclear weapons.
So, what does the Trump administration plan to do? Trump would like to tear up the deal, which he recently called a “disaster” and “insane.” The French, Germans and British say the deal is working as intended.
In fact, two of Trump’s favorite people, and we do not mean
Playboy Bunnies, agreed in a phone call today that the Iranian agreement should
be preserved and fully implemented. Those buddies: Vladimir Putin, Trump’s
Secret Santa pal, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
*
TRUMP loves Macron – as we saw recently during the first state visit of Trump’s tenure in office. With reporters looking on, the President of the United States appeared to have a foreign policy boner. “We have a very special relationship,” Trump continued, referring to Macron, who stood by his side.
“In fact,” Trump said, glancing at his best French friend, “I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off.”
“Against ignorance we have education.”
The next day, in a speech to Congress, Macron went out of his way to point to the critical foreign policy mistakes of the Trump administration. Vox highlighted five times Mr. Perfect rebuked the Buffoon. When it came to climate change, Macron explained the different paths one might take. “I believe that against ignorance we have education,” he began, implying that Trump put the ignoramus in ignorance. He listed other dualities, finishing with this: “Against the threats on the planet, science.”
Climate change wasn’t a “hoax, or a communist ploy dreamed up to hurt the United States. Macron explained:
Some people think that securing
current industries and their jobs is more urgent than transforming our
economies to meet the global challenge of climate change. I hear these
concerns. But we must find a smooth transition to a low-carbon economy. Because
what is the meaning of our life, really, if we work and live destroying the
planet [emphasis added]…What is the meaning of our life if our decision,
our conscious decision, is to reduce the opportunities for our children and
grandchildren?
By polluting the oceans, not
mitigating CO2 emissions, and destroying our biodiversity – we are
killing our planet. Let us face it. There is no planet B.
Macron also mentioned the dangers of “Fake News.” With the greatest liar in U.S. history occupying the Oval Office, you knew he was thinking of Trump when he warned, “Without reason, without truth, there is no real democracy, because democracy is about true choices and rational decisions. The corruption of information is an attempt to corrode the very spirit of our democracies.”
How about scrapping the Iran deal? Good idea or bad?
We must ensure stability and
respect sovereignty of the nations, including that one of Iran, which
represents a great civilization. Let us not replicate past mistakes in the
region. Let us not be naive on one side. Let us not create new walls ourselves
on the other side. There is an existing framework called the JCPOA to control
the nuclear activity of Iran. We signed it at the initiative of the United
States. We signed it, both the United States and France. That is why we
cannot say we should get rid of it like that.
Or to put it more succinctly, in terms of foreign affairs, the Trump administration really sucks!
The sun sets over Washington.
No comments:
Post a Comment