Fire and Fury

When Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” politicians and media commentators started quaking in their boots. If the words were designed to provoke fear, they did so. We do not know what Kim Jong-un thought but a legion of weak-kneed Americans was terrified beyond reason.

Many of them evoked the steady hand that John F. Kennedy played while dealing with the Cuban missile crisis. Conveniently, they forgot that JFK himself had precipitated the crisis by seeming to invite Soviet leader Khrushchev to put the missiles in Cuba. But, as they say, never let an inconvenient fact get in the way of your narrative.

The Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning:

The President’s point was that the North’s escalating threats are intolerable; he didn’t set any red lines. True to form, Pyongyang responded by putting the U.S. island of Guam in its cross hairs. Mr. Trump may be guilty of hyperbole (quelle surprise), but that is far less damaging to U.S. credibility than Barack Obama’s failure to enforce his prohibition on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria. The foreign-policy elite who claim to be shocked also don’t have much credibility after their policy across three Administrations led to the current North Korean danger.

Let’s see. Bill Clinton masterfully negotiated the North Korea nuclear deal. Aided and abetted by Jimmy Carter Clinton bears the most responsibility for the current situation with North Korea. About that, no one cares.

The Journal reminds us of where this all started:

Yet in 1994 then-President Bill Clinton used the threat of military action as he tried to force the North to give up its nuclear program. But former President Jimmy Carter exceeded his diplomatic mandate and maneuvered Mr. Clinton to accept a deal that propped up Pyongyang without adequate inspections.

Barack Obama knew all about North Korea’s nuclear weapons and did nothing. Everyone considers that to have been the height of great diplomacy, but those who adore Obama never allow themselves to criticize anything he did. His policy of strategic patience was really another way of saying: let someone else deal with the problem. Kicking the can down the road was the hallmark of the Obama presidency. How did it work out in Syria? 

Among the reasons why North Korea refuses to abandon its nuclear program: it saw what happened to Libyan leader Qaddhafi when he gave up his nuclear program. He was deposed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The American action in Libya produced anarchy and more terrorism in that country. It elicited waves of refugees invading Europe. And it convinced Kim Jong-un that it was a bad idea to give up nuclear weapons. Why did Obama and Clinton do it? Because Hillary needed to show that she was tough enough to be president.

Let us also point out that South Korea recently elected of a weak appeaser as president. Former human rights lawyer President Moon Jae-in told America to shut down its installations of THAAD missiles in his country and offered an olive branch to Kim Jong-il. We know how well that worked out. At the least, America has been taking the lead because South Korea elected a weak president.

As for Trump’s words, yesterday Defense Secretary Mattis told the North Koreans that he was ready to destroy both the regime and the people of North Korea. No one was saying that his remarks were intemperate and undiplomatic.

Trump did not lay down any red lines, of course. The Journal suggests that, after decades of failed diplomacy, Trump was trying to find words that the North Korean leader would understand:

While the President’s words were unusually colorful, the Communist-style language may have been part of the message: Kim Jong Un isn’t the only one who can raise the geopolitical temperature. The U.S. has military options to neutralize the regime’s nuclear threat if it continues to develop long-range missiles, and the U.S. is considering those options.

As for diplomatic subtlety, Trump’s message was also addressed to China. The Chinese president had promised to do something about North Korea. He did not. Last weekend China agreed to a U. N. Resolution putting more sanctions on North Korea, but there was little chance of their working. Does anyone really believe that China or Russia will adhere to them?

The Journal suggests:

The China reference is a tip-off that the main audience for this rhetorical theater is in Beijing. Kim Jong Un won’t stop now that he’s so close to his goal of a nuclear deterrent. But China might restrict the flow of oil to the North, for example, if it believes that stronger action on its part could forestall a U.S. pre-emptive strike.

The audience for Trump’s remarks, the Journal writes, is also the group of people surrounding Kim. If they feel that the threat is sufficiently credible they might act to remove him from power.

Of course, there’s more that America can do, beginning with action against Chinese banks and companies:

One statement isn’t going to change minds in Beijing or Pyongyang. The Trump Administration can also signal its seriousness by imposing secondary sanctions on more Chinese companies, financial institutions and individuals. The U.S. also needs to move more military assets into the region to make the use of force credible.

That is the entire point. The threat has to be credible. For it to be credible people must believe that the people who made it might just be crazy enough to do it.