Interesting idea. The guy is, despite his reputed intelligence, an ego monster of the first order and as much a prisoner of his cult of personality as Saddam turned out to be. Can he step down and continue breathing?
I have no more ghost of an idea of what's really going on than anyone, but something certainly is.
Just noting that NK's foreign policy communications over the past several years has been one of ...
- One day they threaten to Nuke everyone;
- Next day, they are all nice, nice asking everyone over for cocktails and discussing how they ready to give up their nuclear program and make peace;
- The next day, it's right back to a nuke war is coming your way boys.
They are the master of switching back and forth between threat and concilliation, threat and more concillation.
You never know if this is just misinformation getting us to hope that regime change is just around the corner.
Probably not. If he steps down, his only option is to flee to China. Letting go of absolute power, and in North Korea, that means the image as well as the fact, would be suicidal.
Possibly some elements may want to pretend that he is still alive and/or in power, but that's a secret you can't keep for long, even in the Hermit Kingdom.