Despite the propensity of Donald J. Trump to snatch humiliating defeats from the jaws of what should have been easy victories, I think (as much as I’m revolted by simply forming the thought), I think he deserves some credit for the current climate of prospects for peace on the Korean Peninsula.
In any rational world, he certainly does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for his bluster and threats to countries and to leaders he doesn’t like during his first year in office. But if the situation plays out where he even meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-un face to face, and then, whatever? Trump walks out of his summit meeting with Kim with increased stature. Dude will have scored his first major diplomatic victory.
For a long time I’ve predicted that if he just goes two weeks without an embarrassing revelation about a prostitute or some other humiliation for his wife — a former lingerie model herself — two weeks with no humiliating press and he’ll look like Winston Churchill on the world stage. And so now, in the light of this Korean diplomacy, his poll numbers are soaring, from “worst in history” to “worst since Harry Truman.”
And now, unless Kim is hustling 45 with his promises to denuclearize, then the U.S. leader wins bonus points for any peace deal between the Koreas. After all, maybe the North feels they can play to this narcissistic, sexual predator’s insatiable ego and wrangle any kind of an agreement with the self-proclaimed “King of the Deal,” that they may feel is to their advantage.
North Korea might look at demilitarized Japan and demilitarized Germany — two of the U.S.’s bloody enemies during World War II, both of which’s competitive development in an environment which forbade their military investment in the second half of the 20th century gave those two countries the freedom to dominate U.S.’s automobiles and consumer electronics markets. Those defeated military powers became the world’s economic masters, under American “protection.” The United States was just “the protector,” the muscle.
The desire for economic advancement might be tempting to the North, especially in light of the tremendous prosperity enjoyed by their Korean brethren in the South.
But then again, they might look at the example of how the U.S. betrayed Libya and helped in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, a leader the U.S. didn’t like, after Qaddafi dismantled his country’s atomic, biological and chemical capabilities.
The North Koreans might look at Trump’s promised intention to throw out the currently enforced six-nation, Iranian nuclear agreement to inform their decision about striking a “deal” with Trump. So much, it would seem, for the U.S. keeping its word by honoring that treaty that’s just three years old. Native Americans in iconic Western movies — who suffered betrayal after betrayal of their own, of treaty after treaty — said it plainly: “White man speak with forked tongue.”
The Trump-Kim summit has not yet even been confirmed, although Kim’s successful recent meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae In does advance the possibility that the two Koreas might, on their own, at least end their official state of war on their peninsula. The open hostilities between the countries are now in a fragile “cease-fire” governed by a 65-year-old armistice, not by a peace treaty.
Trump does not want to appear to concede too much to the North Koreans — or to anyone for that matter — so his vanity may cause him to sabotage any impending success there. On the other hand, he really does want to keep his country’s powder dry for his all-out assault against Iran, so The Donald may go through with a face-to-face, first-in-history meeting with the North Korean leader, earning him a place on Mt. Rushmore and the Peace Prize, a standing ovation when his hologram appears at the next White House Correspondents Association Dinner, and of course, Time Man of The Year for the Decade! MAGA! He did it! What a guy!
I wish I could say it ain’t so, but I’ve got to hand it to Donald J. Trump. Don’t ask me what I’d really like to hand him a warm bag of — I’ll just say I’ve got to hand it to him.