Running North Korea freakout thread

There is not a leader of a rogue state* in existence that spouts lies at anywhere near the rate of Donald J. Trump.

* rogue state = nation that will not kiss our ass

 

So it's being reported Kim took his own toilet to the summit to prevent his bodily wastes from being captured and analyzed by South Korean intelligence. Not paranoid at all! He and Trump SHOULD get along just great.

 

I don't blame him.

23 그리고 나

 

It was Iran's money.

 

That's just not true.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that almost $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets must be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran.

U.S. top court rules Iran bank must pay 1983 bomb victims

 

Lindsey Graham: President Trump could get Nobel Prize for how he's handled Kim Jong Un

I view the Nobel Peace Prize as a joke and the Korea situation would be much better handled through regime change. However, if they stay on this path and end the war and denuclearize and reunify to some extent, which are all things that are being seriously discussed. Then, yes Trump would deserve the Nobel Prize. The weight of the Korea situation was placed square on Trump and he was deserving of the blame or credit for whatever happened.

Definitely would deserve it more than other recent President that received it.

Trump definitely deserves the credit, unlike Obama who did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

 

South Korea's president would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Donny J is figuring out a way to buy himself the Nobel. In fact, I say he brings it up within 10 days.

 

Trump would have done more to earn it than just get elected president.

 

No, Donald Trump, we are not giving Iran $150 billion for 'nothing'

 

I've been swamped professionally and am still playing catch-up on the momentous doings from the last week. (But are they really as momentous as they appear? Hmmm.) I have a number of thoughts but need to do a little more reading/thinking and then find the time to actually post in detail.

But let me weigh in on one item in this thread: the question of how much "credit" Trump should receive. IMO one needs to give Trump a significant amount of credit for helping put in motion the events that led to Friday's NK-SK summit, and even more so for the likely upcoming summit between the U.S. and NK. Though for the record, while the optics were extraordinary on Friday and the goals that Kim and Moon said they would try to achieve were also very dramatic and far-reaching, there have not been any concrete, actionable, verifiable steps yet taken, or even proposed. Moreover, the upcoming U.S.-NK summit is potentially a high-risk, high-reward affair – though in real terms (as opposed to political terms) I believe it to be a medium-reward, high-risk proposition for the U.S. Whereas the very moment that Kim sits down with Trump as essentially an equal with the whole world watching, it's a huge win for Kim and NK. That's one of the main reasons they've built their nuclear arsenal in the first place – for the U.S. to take them seriously.

Also, I don't think Trump's credit is due to what he likely believes. I don't think his tough Twitter talk has bothered Kim in the least, but I do think it scared South Korea and Moon, and it's the South Koreans who have been reaching out to Kim all along. Kim has been the one being wooed, while SK has been the supplicant.

The Trump administration definitely deserves credit for the strong economic sanctions on NK, which seem to have had a real impact. But frankly I don’t think Trump himself had much to do with them or particularly cares about them. That kind of diplomacy bores him. He’d rather not read his policy briefings, and instead tweet about Little Rocket Man and the size of his “button.” But it was the diplomatic policy of international sanctions that brought Kim to the table more than Trump's tough-guy tweets. So kudos to the Trump admin for that.

One final note. At the risk of some Trumpian self-congratulation, I want to point out the "intelligence" I passed along from some admin sources last summer (second- and third-hand, to be fair). One piece of that was that Trump had already decided that North Korea would be his "legacy." So I do think he's been more strategic on this issue than on most others. He badly wants to zig where other presidents have zagged and point to some historic achievement, where he can say that he was the only one who could have done it. I think that was behind him abruptly saying yes to Kim's offer to meet; I don't think he was necessarily aware that past Presidents could certainly have met with the Kims if they had wanted, but they didn't want to elevate them. But even if he knew that, he was determined to do something different and dramatic. And he has done so, for better or worse.

It's hard to know exactly how Trump's long-term focus – literally as long as he's been focused on anything as President – on being able to declare victory re: NK will affect things. I think it could be a good or bad thing. But IMO it's already evident, such as in his Tweet last week that Kim had "agreed to denuclearization" when, in fact, Kim had agreed to no such thing. Trump badly wants to take a "W," give himself an A+, take some victory laps on Twitter and Fox, and call it a day. And Kim knows that. IMO, that's Advantage, Kim.

[Also, a friendly reminder of the other intelligence bits from last summer: 1) admin folks weren't that worried about anything on the collusion front much worse than the Trump Tower meeting, which has already been weathered; 2) they were very worried about Trump's dirty business/finances being discovered; 3) the Russia-prostitutes stuff was largely true. So far, I don't see any reason to doubt those three things, but obviously Mueller is still cranking along in a remarkably leak-free effort. I don't think the lack of leaks is discussed enough. Mueller is legit, and it's both comical and infuriating to me that Trump and the GOP spend so much time trying to portray him as a corrupt hack. The infuriating part is that their attacks have clearly worked to good effect among many GOP voters. It's the height of cynicism, and cynicism is putting up solid numbers and could actually win.]