“IOW, there won’t be an attack. This is the Pentagon and the CIA putting out deza in the press to try and foment some sort of leadership crisis in the military/party structure so someone will dispose of Kim.”
I read an account of Stalin’s final hours, with his remaining generals gathered outside his sickroom, afraid to act.
Finally, Khrushchev went inside and closed the door. According to this account, no one knows what happened in that room, but when he came out, Stalin was dead.
It can be very, very hard to assassinate murderous dictators like Stalin and Saddam.
I thought it was Lavrentiy Beria who later bragged that he had poisoned Stalin behind closed doors. The truth will most likely never be known.