BY ROBERT E. MCCOY
With signs of a possible confrontation of some sort this year, is the US prepared for a bloody clash with North Korea – or even a naval conflict with China?
President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo, a hard-line Iran hawk, to replace him. Trump explicitly noted that he and Tillerson did not agree on the Iran nuclear deal, with the outgoing secretary advocating for the United States to remain in the accord. Trump has threatened to exit the deal unless Congress and European signatories to the accord agree to address what the president views as its shortcomings.
However, Pompeo’s previous advocacy for exiting the deal and his support for military force against Tehran when he was a member of Congress could complicate his Senate confirmation. Pro-deal advocacy groups are already gearing up to lobby against his confirmation even as Democratic senators warn that he will face an uphill battle. Read More
Mike Chinoy, a former CNN Senior Asia Correspondent who’s traveled to the Hermit Kingdom 17 times, offers some key insights:
- “The conventional wisdom says that whenever any agreement has been reached, North Korea has cheated. But the reality is more complex. Not all negotiations have failed — and the collapse of agreements during that time has been as much the responsibility of Washington as of Pyongyang.”
- “Internal divisions and mixed signals on the U.S. side have repeatedly crippled otherwise promising diplomatic opportunities, contributing to misunderstanding and miscalculations in Pyongyang about American intentions and behavior.”
- “This may help explain why North Korea has so far issued no formal public statement on the reported offer of talks Kim Jong Un made to visiting South Korean officials last week. Kim Jong Un is likely very much aware of this history, and may well be waiting and watching to see whether the Trump administration— chaotic, lacking Korea expertise, and internally divided – is in fact ready to move forward…[before confirming he is] prepared to do so as well.”