Once a country achieves the ability to produce nuclear weapons, it discontinues testing. This has been the pattern with the eight previous nations that have belonged to the “nuclear club” for several decades.
North Korea has tested nuclear weapons for a number of years. It has now perfected the production of same, and has announced that it will discontinue testing and dismantle its testing sites. For better or worse, the country is now a member of the exclusive club.
President Trump seems to think that this is a triumph of his foreign policy, Fox News is touting “winning” again, and there is talk of a Nobel Prize in the offing for the Prez. The White House is planning a summit meeting in June with the leader of North Korea.
Why?
Unless the U.S. can convince North Korea to destroy all of its nuclear bombs, and dismantle the production facilities, it is hard to see what can be accomplished in such a meeting…except to give the appearance that President Trump knows what he is doing.
The biggest issue surrounding the North Korea nuclear bomb reality is not the threat of that country using such technology in warfare on the Korean peninsula, but, rather, NK selling such weapons to bad guys.
The North Korean economy is in tatters, and it needs cash. The country already has a history of selling weaponry to despots and terrorists worldwide. Do you think Al Queda or ISIS can afford a nuclear bomb? I’m sure one of their Saudi benefactors could pony up some serious cash.
What is the U.S. policy going to be about that? A couple of Saudi princes financed 9-11; what did we do about that? President Trump has been very chummy with Saudi Arabia lately.
In fact, what IS America’s foreign policy these days? It seems that there is no concrete policy…just whatever happens to be in the President’s mind after he watches Fox and Friends. “Talk tough!” and see what happens.
Or, “Fake it-til-you-make it”. They say that if you put a typewriter in front of a monkey, eventually he will produce some meaningful prose.
If there ever was a chance for the United States to extricate itself from the Middle East, that hope was probably dashed this week when we opened up an embassy in Jerusalem. This stupid maneuver will likely queer any chance of resolving the Palestinian issue, and is sure to annoy Al Queda, ISIS and Iran. Riots broke out upon the announcement and 56 Palestinians were shot dead by the Israeli military.
At almost the same time, the U.S. withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal. This move was opposed by the other original signatories (Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and China), and, basically, gives the green light for Iran to resume its quest to be a 10th member of the nuclear club.
Of course, Iran could simply purchase a few bombs from North Korea.
So, it seems like our foreign policy de jour is to act as if we have Israel’s back…
… while at the same time we enable Iran, Israel’s mortal enemy, t0 achieve the means by which to annihilate their Jewish neighbors. Confusing, isn’t it?
(Oh, and it can’t help to bolster U.S. credibility that we walked out of a nuclear deal with Iran that they were complying with. If America doesn’t honor its commitments, why would North Korea enter into a nuclear deal with us?)
In the meanwhile, the United States will continue to station thousands of troops in harm’s way over there, and spend millions of dollars a minute keeping our carrier fleets operating in the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans…just in case we might want to send another cruise missile to Syria to show how much we despise President Al-Assad’s use of poison gas on his countrymen.
One wonders if there will ever come a day when America ceases to have a military garrison in the Middle East. It is Vietnam on steroids.
Of course, the President feels that solving tough problems is right in his wheelhouse. One year ago, speaking about bringing peace to the Middle East mess, he said, “It is something that I think is frankly, maybe, not as difficult as people have thought over the years”.
Yeah…over 3,000 years!
Don’t we have enough problems to tackle right here in the United States? I thought Trump’s campaign motto was “America First”… ??
