A gangster-like demand
Oh yes, it’s all going very well.
North Korea accused the Trump administration on Saturday of pushing a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization” and called it “deeply regrettable,” hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his two days of talks in the North Korean capital were “productive.”
How is this possible? Trump just told us the problem was over, done, history, finito. Fixed by him, he said it was.
On Saturday, Mr. Pompeo and his entourage offered no immediate evidence that they had come away with anything tangible to show that North Korea was willing to surrender its nuclear and missile weapons programs.
Tangible? Oh come now, that’s a very high bar. Surely Trump’s word is all that’s required.
Mr. Pompeo came to Pyongyang to try to get the North Koreans to match their vague commitment to denuclearization — signed by Kim Jong-un in the June meeting with President Trump — with some kind of action. Among the first priorities were a declaration of weapons sites, a timeline of deconstruction efforts and, perhaps, a written statement that the North’s definition of denuclearization matched Mr. Pompeo’s.
Asked if he had gotten any of those, Mr. Pompeo declined to divulge details.
In other words, no.
Privately, Mr. Pompeo has said that he doubts the North Korean leader will ever give up his nuclear weapons. And those doubts have been reinforced in recent days by intelligence showing that North Korea, far from dismantling its weapons facilities, has been expanding them and taking steps to conceal the efforts from the United States.
Mr. Trump has said his summit meeting with Mr. Kim was a success, and he has declared the North “no longer a nuclear threat.” Squaring Mr. Trump’s evaluation with what increasingly seems like a more troubling reality has become one of Mr. Pompeo’s greatest challenges as the United States’ chief diplomat.
That’s not a “challenge,” it’s an impossibility. Trump’s evaluation is sheer dictator-drivel, and there’s no way to “square” it with reality. The Times should skip that kind of evasive bafflegab.
Many people who have negotiated with North Korea in the past, or who follow the country closely, also express doubt that the North will surrender its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
But Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, denied on Saturday that Mr. Pompeo saw the process as doomed.
“There’s a lot of hard work that’s left to be done,” she said. “We never thought this would be easy, and that’s why consultations continue.”
Who’s “we”? Trump did. Trump told us he’d fixed it and that the threat was over.
“Mr. Trump has said his summit meeting with Mr. Kim was a success, and he has declared the North “no longer a nuclear threat.” Squaring Mr. Trump’s evaluation with what increasingly seems like a more troubling reality has become one of Mr. Pompeo’s greatest challenges as the United States’ chief diplomat.”
Given the choice of Trump being proved wrong and the lives of tens of millions of Koreans, it’s a no-brainer. “Squaring it” will result in nuclear war.
Pretty much any member of the Trump administration whose job it is to interface with reality or the reality-based community has as their primary task getting people to ignore the differences between what the administration claims and what anyone knows. The administration certainly isn’t going to make it easier by reducing those differences.