Posted on 09/30/2019 8:26:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
ormer national security adviser John Bolton on Monday said he does not believe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will give up his nuclear weapons in a deal with the United States.
North Korea “has not made a strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons,” Bolton said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in his first public remarks since leaving the Trump administration.
“In fact, I think the contrary is true. I think the strategic decision that Kim Jong Un is operating through is that he will do whatever he can to keep a deliverable nuclear weapons capability and to develop and enhance it further.”
Kim may make “some concessions,” Bolton added, “but under current circumstances, he will never give up the nuclear weapons voluntarily.”
Bolton, who was ousted as national security adviser last month amid policy disagreements with President Trump and personality clashes with other administration officials, did not mention Trump by name in his address Monday.
He also repeatedly declined to discuss specifics of his time in the administration, saying he has a “self-imposed” restriction on doing so, and declined to answer a question on whether “bromance” diplomacy is the best approach to North Korea.
But the arguments Bolton laid out in his speech are in contradiction to the president’s approach at brokering a nuclear deal with North Korea.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I never expected they would.
I’m convinced fat-boy Kim wants nukes for leverage against China first, and only further down the list, protection against the USA and Japan
Well, duh !
“They may now that you are history.”
No. Bolton was not the obstacle, unless, in spite of the truth Bolton speaks about the thinking of the North Korean dictator, Trump would make a deal with them anyway; in spite of not getting true abandonment of the North’s nuclear ambitions.
Either the North Korean dictator mistakenly thinks that Trump without Bolton would make a deal that allowed them to keep their nuclear weapons, or the dictator is correct and he can - without Bolton - get a deal that let’s him keep his nuclear weapons.
If the North Korean leader is right about Bolton & Trump, and Bolton is right about him, Trump will pull an Obama and make a bad deal just to “make a deal” - for his “legacy”, just as Obama did.
On the other hand, if the North Korean leader is wrong, and Trump will not make a deal that agrees to let the North keep it’s nuclear weapons ambitions, but Bolton is right about what the North wants, then Trump is wasting his time, and the dictator in North Korea has still had a domestic P.R. success inside North Korea, as the “victorious leader” that for the first time in North Korea’s history got an American president sit down and meet directly with him. Inside North Korea that benefit to the dictator has been huge.
Bad gamble for the asian peninsula....they likely get their information from MSM. SURPRISE 2020 ! Don's in office for another 4 years. Yurscrued.
I believe he is right.
*************
On this matter he is. Economic development just isn’t at the top of Kim’s priority list. But weapons are.
There is nothing new or surprising in what Bolton said. It is a given N Korea is developing and wants to keep it’s nuclear capacity. The reason for the heavy sanctions placed on them is because of this. The hope is they will at some point find the pain of sanctions no longer worth the price to pay for their nuclear ambitions.
Logically the N Korean leader is nuts for allowing the sanctions to continue for his having a stronger nuke capability since he would at best get just one chance to use them before his country is completely annihilated.
Any clear thinking individual would see this is a lose, lose situation for him. But Kim Jong Un is anything but a clear thinking or forward looking individual and so we shall see how this all plays out.
“I did everything I could to start WW3”
Wrong. Wars are started by aggressors that think you will not defend your interests, not by aggressors who understand they will lose by starting aggression against you. The latter is what North Korea has had to understand since the armistice, it cannot renew hostilities or it will lose everything. The North has believed that it can renew conventional weapons hostilities if it has nuclear arms, as a check against the U.S. bringing it’s nuclear arms in defense of South Korea. With nuclear arms as a backstop, North Korea thinks it can succeed militarily by conventional means. THAT is why nuclear arms in North Korea makes war there more of a risk, because the North thinks it can take the risk with such arms as its back stop. That is why the North abandoning its nuclear arms is the only way to not have another war there.
That is why Bolton is right.
And the stated North Korean definition of "Denuclearization" includes the US officially removing our protection, up to and including nuclear weapons, from South Korea, which is also a gift to Kim.
I agree. I despise chicken hawks like Bolton but he is likely correct o this. I also appreciate and support President Trump trying to change that.
He is right. There might have been some slight chance were it not for what Obama and Hillary pulled with Qaddafi. Freakshow dictator that he was, he did give up the Libyan WMD program. Instead of building on that breakthrough, the powers that be decided that just made him vulnerable enough to remove him with little political risk to themselves because he was neutered.
The same thing will happen to us if we give any ground on the 2nd amendment.
You can bet Rocketman took note of Libya and how giving up WMD is the same thing as giving up power and being humiliated and killed by mobs. He’s not going to be stupid enough to give them up. Even if he believed Trump is acting in good faith he has a very recent example proving there is no guarantee the next president will act in good faith.
And, looking at how easily Americans voted in people openly hostile to their own country, and how Iran has been thumbing its nose at us for over 30 years with no end in sight, and how Russia is sitting in the Crimea, and how Assad is still secure, while the guy who defeated Saddam is demonized universally, even by this President,... Rocketman has no reason to believe he is in danger and every reason to wait Trump out and see if more communists will be elected to office here, and even assist the communists here. North Korea was behind the antiwar protests in the US all along ; the norks supported ANSWER even before 9/11 when it went by another name in the wake of the Gore War in Florida, and there were even US congress critters signed up with ANSWER . The Norks were on the winning side in the Iraq war, having waited until Obama handed it over to Iran. Yes, there’s been foreign meddling in our elections- and the Norks have fared very well in it with their joint propaganda war with Iran and Russia. Rocketman has no reason to offer anything other than symbolic gestures in the hope of getting some sanctions relief or aid or just to wait out this president until a more conciliatory one comes along.
The most Trump is going to get is talk. The only good thing is, Trump’s not going to pull a Clinton or Obama and give him pallets of cash.
Logically he knows his country will not be annihilated and no military force will ever be used against him so long as he or his ally Iran has even minimal nuclear capability. The question is, how much capability does he have after the Nork test mountain collapsed? If we have nothing to give him nightmares, the nightmares he already has about being overthrown from within are his only concern.
And there is some concern there, as Trump knows, because the Norks now have a thriving black market eroding the people’s dependence on the state, and even the military’s dependence on the leader. Dissent will grow so long as the state cannot function better than the black market and that’s what sanctions are there for. There is just no way to know how long it’ll take for dissent to produce an opposition leader, and no way to keep Kim from executing anyone he suspects.
Yes. Saw a video where he’s been compromised from past transgressions.
Somehow I dont think someone with his level of access giving policy speeches is useful to the world situation
What IS it with people and their egos?
Would you give up your national survival ace card ( nuclear weapons) to a nation that ran Hillary Clinton for President, and may do even worse in the next 18 months?
North Korea won't give up nukes
"Would you give up your national survival ace card ( nuclear weapons) to a nation that ran Hillary Clinton for President, and may do even worse in the next 18 months?"
Depends on which foreign leader.
Israel? Absolutely.
Taiwan? Yes
Mexico? Why on earth would they want to waste money developing nukes simply because Bolton lives next door?
I’m beginning to think Bolton is the WB!
Nope, I’d keep them.
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