Offering gratuitous advice before the June 12 summit in Singapore between 71-year-old President Donald Trump and 33-year-old North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, 65-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin gave some tips. Above all else, Kim doesn’t want to end up, as Vice President Mike Pence said, like Libyan strongman Col. Muammar Gaddafi whose Tripoli regime was toppled Aug 23, 2011. Chased for two months before an angry mob tore him limb-for-limb, Kim has real reservations about letting down his guard. Kim, while a teenager, watched Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein driven from Baghdad, eventually hung to death Dec. 30, 2006. Whatever Kim does to loosen his grip on North Korea, there are no guarantees Trump can make that North Korean peasants won’t demand Kim’s head. At best, Trump can only offer limited guarantees, including safe passage for Kim’s family.
Putin told Chinese State TV that Trump will have to offer Kim unprecedented security guarantees if he expects Kim to give up his nukes and ballistic missiles But the real threat to Kim’s life comes not from the U.S. but from his own people, long suffering from the Kim family’s brutal repression. Trump can assure the Kim family that the U.S. under his watch won’t invade North Korea but he can’t stop Kim’s population from rising up against other dictators to exact revenge. Putin praised Kim and Trump for taking unprecedented steps to resolve the nuclear dispute, with Kim dismantling May 12 a geologically unstable nuclear site where much of Kim’s underground testing took place. Like Putin, who runs a tight ship in Russia, Kim has run the most brutally repressive regime on the planet, virtually enslaving and persecuting the North Korean people.
Putin wants to support the summit but can’t admit that Russian companies illicitly supplied Kim the components needed to build A-bombs and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles [ICBMs]. It’s inconceivable that without Russian, Chinese and other nations covertly supplying Kim atomic components, Kim would not have the technology needed to detonate hydrogen bombs and launch ICBMs. Trump and Kim spent the better part of a year threatening each other with progressively more aggressive rhetoric. Kim’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told the U.N. General Assembly Sept. 23, 2017 that it’s “inevitable” North Korean ICBMs would hit the U.S. homeland. Trump warned Kim that more nuclear threats against the U.S. would result in the U.S. taking whatever measure were needed to defend U.S. national security, putting all options on the table.
Trump’s main objective at the June 12 summit has pivoted from nuclear disarmament to consummating at peace treaty, something that should lay out exactly what the U.S. will do to assure North Korean security. Kim’s said for years that his nuclear program was developed to prevent a U.S. invasion. Kim knows that the Korean War ended July 27, 1953, with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Getting a peace treaty or at least starting the process, would be a major breakthrough for Trump, currently embroiled in a media feeding frenzy with Special Counsel Robert Muller’s probe dominating the headlines. Getting a peace treaty, with our without de-nuclearization, would be a major coup for Trump. Democrats will no doubt discount any accomplishment unless Trump gets Kim to disarm his nukes and ballistic missiles—something unrealistic at the Sept. 12 summit.
Putin told Chinese state TV that Trump must offer Kim security guarantees if he wants to make progress on a peace treaty. National Security Adviser John Bolton and Pence nearly torpedoed the summit comparing North Korea to Libya and Iraq. Sidelining Pence and Bolton for the Sept. 12 summit, Trump understands the damage done comparing Kim to Gaddafi and Saddam. Trump can assure Kim that the U.S. will not support rebel groups in North Korea—or anywhere else—that seek to topple his regime. What Trump can’t guarantee is stopping a popular uprising seeking to topple Kim’s Stalinist government. It’s unrealistic to think that a sizable percentage of North Koreans don’t know the intolerable living conditions compared with South Korea. While Kim blacked out the South Korean Winter Olympics, North Koreans know dramatic differences in South Korea
Meeting next week in Singapore, Trump and Kim will command the world’s attention, holding their collective breaths wishing for peace. Putin offered Trump some good advice about offering Kim security guarantees. “It can’t be otherwise, particularly after the tragic events in Libya and Iraq,” said Putin, urging Trump to find the best guarantee to get Kim to disarm his nukes and ICBMs. Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned Trump that if he doesn’t get Kim to disarm his nukes and ballistic missiles, the summit would be a failure. Schumer can’t stop playing politics before November’s Midterm elections. Schumer wants Democrats at all costs to take back the House and Senate in November. With Tuesday’s primaries over, Schumer knows that any good news for Trump at the summit is bad news for Democrats heading into the Midterm elections.
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