For three decades William Arkin was a military analyst at
NBC. Recently, he resigned from the network because he believed that their
coverage of foreign policy and military matters was only serving the interests
of a coterie of so-called experts. For now, he is a columnist at The Guardian.
It think it fair to say that he does not belong to the vast right wing
conspiracy.
As always, we on this blog seek out sane, sensible rational voices on
political issues. In the time of Trump this has become increasingly rare. The
race to the intellectual bottom, accompanied by boundless bias against Trump
has seriously muted such voices.
We also note that more than a few members of Congress are
doing their best to undermine American foreign policy. Today, as Trump
negotiates with Kim, Congressional Democrats are putting on a committee circus,
bringing convicted perjurer Michael Cohen before the public in order to trash talk Trump and to undermine his authority. We have already explained how Congressional whining, from the left
and the right, is damaging Trump administration Middle East policy.
Now, as President Trump is meeting with North Korean
dictator Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, we offer William Arkin’s analysis of the current
state of play in the American-North Korean negotiations. It appeared in The
Guardian (via Maggie’s Farm). Strangely, Arkin finds much to praise in the
Trump approach. He reserves his greatest contempt for the foreign policy and
military experts who have been disparaging every move Trump has made.
Arkin begins by calling out those who have been reflexively
attacking Trump, for no reason other than their own bias.
And
yet, ever since the president announced last year that he would pursue
“complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean
peninsula”, jeering has been the near universal response. It’s come from almost
every imaginable American quarter: Republican and Democrat, liberal and
conservative, expert and amateur.
The national security establishment—a deep state group if
ever there was one-- is selling a caricature of Trump policy, and not just in
North Korea. Arkin continues:
… the
picture painted is of an unmanageable patriarch who desires to give away the
family fortune. That family fortune of course is in the possession of the
national security establishment. On North Korea, but not only with regard to Korea –
look also at Syria and Afghanistan – expert Washington is the master at
adhering to their own preferred solutions. Their passive-aggressive ways –
whether applied to Trump on Korea or Obama on issues like Guantánamo and
general nuclear disarmament – perpetuate stagnancy, any real change stymied
through the imposition of conditions that are never quite achievable.
Trump is not doing things as these deep state actors would
want. Thus, he is actively discrediting their approach and diminishing their
authority. Among the worst, Arkin notes, is former CIA director John Brennan:
Former
president Barack Obama’s CIA director John Brennan has been the most
vociferous, saying that
a president “prone to flattery” and oblivious to North Korea’s “agile feint”
has taken Kim’s “bait”, canceling exercises and contemplating reductions of
forces. Meanwhile, the news media is filled with
leaks and speculation that North Korea clandestinely continues to manufacture
nuclear materials and work on long-range missiles. Ahead of the meeting, US
officials promise that
troop withdrawals from the Korean peninsula won’t happen, more of a hope as to
the actual agenda, given the portrayal of Trump as a dangerous wildcard.
What is the Trump record on North Korea:
North
Korea conducted one nuclear test during the Trump
administration in September 2017 and has backed off even since then.
Five underground tests were held in the two previous administrations. After a
flurry of longer and longer range missile activity in the first months of
Trump’s rule, the North also hasn’t conducted a long-range missile test since
November 2017. Provocations and incidents of other types have also noticeably
declined.
No one
quite knows why Pyongyang slowed its public and overt testing, nor why Trump’s
bluntness and boasting that his nuclear button was bigger seems to have worked.
But consider this: Trump largely inherited practices initiated in the Obama
years, military moves that were meant to threaten and coerce North Korea in
light of its diplomatic failures.
As for why North Korea reacted as it did, we ought to consider
the important influence of the man who is pulling the strings, Chinese
president Xi Jinping. Not to be overly repetitious but I suspect that Pres. Xi
promised Kim security guarantees, while telling him that he had the chance to
do for Korea what Deng Xiaoping had done for China. Today, free enterprise is
beginning to break out in the Hermit Kingdom.
At first, Arkin continues, Trump seemed to be blundering his
way into conflict. Threats and counterthreats filled the airways. The usual
band of Chicken Littles in the media declared solemnly that the sky would soon
be falling and that we were all going to be incinerated.
And yet, Arkin notes:
Into
this near autonomous skid towards conflict blundered Trump. It did look grim
for a few months, the two threatening strikes on each other, missiles flying,
and speculation even emerging that the United States might move nuclear weapons
back onto South Korean soil.
But
then a different course emerged, the denuclearization dream vetoing the
national security establishment’s “tried and true” practices. Much of the
American activity stopped or slowed at the end of 2017. The navy pulled back
and submarines were sent home. B-1 bombers flew elsewhere. After the first
summit meeting, some war games in South Korea were canceled. There was even a
gap between rotating army units coming from the United States.
But then, mirabile dictu, the situation calmed down and
things started moving in a more constructive direction.
Meanwhile,
a new leader in South Korea made significant overtures to the North and the two
sides increased their talks and meetings, ratcheting down tensions and creating
far better conditions for serious negotiations. And slowly, though this could
change on the whims of the illustrators of doom, the ominous maps also pulled
back. You know the ones I’m talking about. First Guam and then Hawaii in range
of the North’s missiles, then Alaska and California, all culminating with the
mushroom cloud and the dotted line moving closer to Washington DC itself.
Naturally, establishment figures are disparaging whatever is
going on. They do not see the glass half-empty. They see it as empty. And if it
isn’t empty they are doing their best to sabotage the ongoing diplomacy:
With
this second summit, the same cast of characters wants you to know that North
Korea is refusing to provide an inventory of its nuclear program, that it is
secretly building missiles and preparing this and that new base, that it is
modernizing its military, that it is trying to break sanctions, that it is a
cyber and even terrorist threat. And most important, that it is fooling the
president.
Most of
the leaks come from active saboteurs but some also just believe they are
protecting America. They want you to believe that doofus Trump will willy-nilly
agree to withdraw the near 30,000 American troops from the peninsula, at the
same time closing the nuclear umbrella over South Korea and Japan. And, if he
is successful, they want you to know that he might divert attention from Robert
Mueller and the border wall debacle and all of what else might be more
important to Washington.
Arkin concludes on an optimistic note:
Say
what you will about Trump, but after some very bad years of active nuclear
testing and missile shooting, disarmament on the Korean peninsula has already
occurred. Things are quieter and two leaders who previously weren’t talking –
ever – now are. Sure the United States should remain vigilant, but much of the
penis-wagging and button-pushing is over. To say no success has occurred is
factually incorrect. Just getting rid of the war cry is enough to cheer over.
‘Penis-wagging.” So high-brow. As for the Deep State, their decades of “deep understanding” of international diplomacy produced no results on the Korean Peninsula. OrangeManBad is taking a different approach. You know... Think Different. Tough to do in D.C., where everyone is so smart and all think the same.
ReplyDeleteWhat Trump is doing, is "breaking the rice bowls" of the deep-staters, which is one of the reasons they hate him. Then there's "breaking the status quo", which just burns their butts.
ReplyDeleteThe Grauniad will never be thought to be "right-wing". I suspect they'd rise in righteous fury if someone did.
ReplyDelete