Floods in Texas, fires in
California, a Category 5 hurricane targeting Florida—what more destruction can
we take? There’s worse, I’m afraid, because we have two clowns with bad
haircuts threatening nuclear holocaust. God forbid one of them decides to push
the button first.
Kim Jong Un’s objective is a reunited
Korea under his control, and he is playing a dangerous game of chicken to reach
it. He is wagering that the United States will abandon South Korea rather than
start a nuclear war. That’s why he’s raising the ante with more tests of
missiles capable of delivering a hydrogen bomb to Japan or even a U.S.
territory. In response, President Trump threatens fire and fury. But what kind?
The debate in the bowels of the
Pentagon is on whether or not to carry out a preventive strike. It is doubtful
that the U.S. would use nukes to vaporize North Korea without a first strike by
the renegade regime, no matter how grave the threats from Pyongyang. Short of a
nuclear strike, the options are a matter of degree: do we try to send a message
by going after North Korea’s launch sites, or do we target all of its military
facilities, including Kim’s headquarters? In either case our actions would
likely trigger a retaliation that could vaporize Seoul and kill thousands of
American soldiers. That’s not a responsibility that our President and his
military advisors want to bear.
Does this mean that Kim’s strategy
is working? Maybe. But we have other means of persuading him to back off, like
severe economic, financial, and trade sanctions and cutting off any country
that does business with North Korea. But sanctions have never worked in the
past and are not likely to work now. And cutting business ties with China and
others has enormous implications on many levels, none of which are good for us.
So where are we now?
Hoping for a resolution to this
conflict is much like waiting to see where Hurricane Irma will hit. The only
certainty: devastation.
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