Just a day after our Talking is Not the Answer article last week, Kim Jong Un tested a Hydrogen bomb that was about 100 times as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki in World War II. This demonstrates that he understands what is coming and that he is accelerating his schedule to develop a nuclear bomb carrying ICBM that can hit America.
Last week we discussed why acceptance of such a North Korean capability poses enormous long term risks to America and to the global world order. As we all know, what happens between nations finally comes down to the core convictions of their leaders. So we ask all of you to decide whether President Trump wants to go down in US history as the man who accepted North Korea as a nuclear danger to America. Our own view is Absolutely Not. If we are right, then President Trump has a short window to act.
Jim Rickards of Strategic Intelligence has come to the same conclusion using the concept of “breakout” and thinks President Trump has 6 months. Listen to him making his case:
The next few months will involve both America and Kim Jong Un making their cases publicly before the world. America’s objective is to demonstrate that, unlike the 2003 Iraq invasion, America has tried every peaceful measure it can, that America has enlisted the help of every nation that can persuade North Korea before reluctantly resorting to force. Had this been America of 2003, the attack on North Korea would have happened 4 months ago. Kim Jong Un, on the other hand, is trying to appear strong & resolute before his people.
In this game, as in most games of combat, getting angry is a mistake for a leader & losing control of one’s emotions in anger is a tell tale sign that the pressure is getting to him. Kim Jong Un displayed that in an unhinged attack on America’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley. That Ms. Haley, a woman, treated him in an insulting way seems to have been the trigger for Kim’s loss of control. Read the posted comments of Korean Central News Agency to witness his loss of control. A few excerpts are below:
- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, a political prostitute, has kicked off a hysteric fit, … she hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK, stunning the world public. … she is just a beginner in politics and diplomacy … She is crazily swishing her skirt …
- She became a laughing stock of the world public for her reckless tongue-lashing devoid of any elementary conception of reason. It seems that she is still ignorant of what disaster would be entailed by her stupidity. So wretched is the plight of the U.S. which put forward such depraved woman and beginner diplomat as its representative in the UN arena.
- Nikki should be careful with her tongue though she might be a blind fool. The U.S. administration will have to pay a dear price for her tongue-lashing.
That a woman could have the temerity to hurt “the dignity of supreme” Kim Jong Un, that too a beginner woman, seems to have unhinged Kim. That is why he lashed out with words like “crazily swishing her skirt“, “prostitute“, “hysteric fit”. We doubt Kim would have reacted in this way had President Trump, a man & America’s supreme leader, had made the same comments.
We wonder if this presents an opening for the Trump Administration. Why not let Nikki Haley be the point for speaking to & about Kim Jong Un? The thought of having to negotiate with a woman, a lower ranked woman, instead of Secretary Tillerson would enrage not only Kim Jong Un but his entire senior leadership. Her continued public comments at the UN about Kim could possibly send him over the edge and into making the big mistake that President Trump & Secretary Mattis are waiting for.
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