The Los Angeles Times reports tonight that the North Korea part of the speech as delivered was not in the speech as prepared and vetted by Trump's aides. Not an error of omission, Trump wanted to say what he said and was warned not to say it. Why?
A detailed CIA psychological profile of Kim, who is in his early 30s and took power in late 2011, assesses that Kim has a massive ego and reacts harshly and sometimes lethally to insults and perceived slights.
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As predicted, Kim took Trump’s jibes personally and especially chafed at the fact that Trump mocked him in front of 200 presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and diplomats at the U.N.
“The point is to deter a North Korean attack, and the art of deterrence hasn’t changed,” he said in a phone interview Friday. “It is to convince your adversary that the benefit of committing an attack would be outweighed by the costs.”
“That’s what Trump was making clear — it is not in Kim Jong Un’s interest to attack the U.S.,” Kroenig said.
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As predicted, Kim took Trump’s jibes personally and especially chafed at the fact that Trump mocked him in front of 200 presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and diplomats at the U.N.
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John Park, a specialist on Northeast Asia at Harvard’s Kennedy School, said the tit-for-tat insults have created a “new reality” and probably have shut off any chance of starting talks to curb North Korea’s fast-growing nuclear arms program.
“If the belief centers around sanctions being the last hope to averting war and getting North Korea back to the negotiating table, it’s too late,” Park said.
I did not know about the CIA profile (obviously!) and did not think it was at Trumpian or Mohammadian levels of provocation. I thought it was thoughtful and moving in parts, I'm not going to unsay the things I wrote last night, I have thought about that post and am leavin' it stand. I did think, what are the chances these two provocative racists could have a meeting after the UN speech. That should have been part of "Fantasy Public Occurrences" posted earlier yesterday. What John Park at Kennedy says sounds not fantastical.
The LA Times (this a real coup of a story for the LA Times) does quote the other side as good reporting does:
Matthew Kroenig, a political scientist at Georgetown University and expert on nuclear deterrence, said Trump’s threat this week to “totally destroy” North Korea comes out of the U.S. playbook for preventing a nuclear attack.
“That’s what Trump was making clear — it is not in Kim Jong Un’s interest to attack the U.S.,” Kroenig said.
I'm going to call Matthew Kroenig a liar on that one unless he can site chapter and verse that threatening genocide and insulting the holder of keys to a nuclear arsenal as"Rocket Man" is from "the U.S. playbook for preventing nuclear attack." What if Kim Jong un were threatened with nuclear attack?" the former North Korean as asked on The World the other day. Pause. "He'd push the nuclear button." That sounds plausible to me. And that is what Trump did this week, in personally insulting terms, too. Trump got Un's attention and Un's attention is now plausibly turned to bad intentions.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-fg-trump-northkorea-20170922-story.html
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-fg-trump-northkorea-20170922-story.html
