Posted on 09/30/2019 3:31:56 PM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
WASHINGTON: Ousted National Security Advisor John Bolton said Kim Jong Un “will never give up” nuclear weapons voluntarily — an implicit warning to his former boss. Bolton was restating a consensus view of the Intelligence Community, one that runs counter to President Trump’s faith that the North Korean dynast can be wheedled and cajoled.
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies today, Bolton attracted a forest of TV cameras hoping for some fireworks. They probably thought they were getting something hot when Bolton made his comment about North Korea but, as Breaking D readers know, the Intelligence Community’s top expert on North Korea, Markus Garlauskas, said two years ago that Kim “does not intend to negotiate those (nuclear) capabilities away at any price.”
But Bolton also made pretty clear he does not agree with President Trump’s tactics of calling Kim his good friend and of dismissing violations of international law each time the tubby North Korean leader launches a ballistic missile. Bolton noted that time is on Kim’s side, not ours.
“Every day that goes by makes North Korea a more dangerous country,” he said at CSIS. “When does it become too late? Today is better than tomorrow. Tomorrow is better than the next day.”
In perhaps the most telling moment, the highly respected North Korean expert at CSIS, Victor Cha, pressed Bolton on Trump’s “bromance” approach to diplomacy, asking if it was the best way to get to an agreement.
“I’m not going to comment on that,” Bolton said with a piercing glance. “Nice try.”
The bottom line for Kim, Bolton made clear, is that he has made “the strategic decision” to “do whatever he can to keep a deliverable nuclear weapons capability and to develop and enhance it further.”
John Rood, one of the top officials at the Defense Department, spoke later in the day at CSIS and he spoke almost exclusively about the US-South Korean alliance, noting that the State Department has “the lead” in negotiations to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
Pressed on whether Bolton was right about whether North Korea would denuclearize, Rood said, “that’s the very question we’re seeking to answer with the negotiations our president is leading,…Time will tell if we’re successful.”
Well we will see, won’t we?
There is a link to a video stream. There were interesting comments and some good Q/A it seems.
It doesn’t mean you ignore Kim. You keep trying.
In a way, future tense, and in a way present and past tense. The jury is returning to the jury box, bit by bit.
The pathetic irony here is that the whole purpose of any foreign nation’s nuclear weapons program is to protect that country from warmongering American draft-dodgers like John Bolton.
Dude’s always banging his cup for a new war.
Hell has no fury like a neocon scorned
Kim should never be ignored. Much of what his military and tactical ballistic program infrastructure is doing—as we speak—however, is being ignored, or at the very least downplayed or explained away. I fully agree with you.
We absolutely need to develop an individual man targetable space-based weapons system
Zot!
Bolton holding a presser to inform us all of NORKS intentions is a bit stupid. Thirty years of nothing changes is not shocking news. Trump has proven more career lifelong political geniuses more often wrong than right, despite the deep state dogma. Being intelligence analy$t$ in D.C.pays a longer payout by being wrong.
Oh I think we know ‘exactly’ what Kim’s up to.....just because it isn’t carried in the news cycle doesn’t mean we don’t know.
LOL
The CIA is signing his checks now.
Trump could give him one of those back-pats and stick a homing device on him.
I absolutely agree with Bolton here. Unfortunately the President is just a little busy at the moment trying to put down another coup.
The guy is just trying to keep the neocon business model operational. He likes the job. Its kind of like JJ explaining that whitey always gonna be raciss. JJ needs racism like Bolton needs foreign interventions.
Or that really cool machine that good Kirk had in bad Kirk’s universe.
Just put the camera on folks and make em disappear :)
The irony here of “deep state”, at least if you are referring to State Department, has been one of extreme appeasement and backing down at the last minute, being out negotiated by the Norks, appeasing, giving carrots in hope of stuff in return. We saw it in all administrations, particularly Clinton and the final two years of GWB oh don’t forget Obama. Steeped in illusion and naivete. That would be my definition.
Botlon’s just trying to make himself still feel useful.....speaking engagements are the usual route officials take to nurse their wounds. They want to explain or excuse or both.
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