Monday, April 2, 2018

KIM'S DIPLOMATIC CARD

The trap Trump needs to avoid.

April 2, 2018
 
Joseph Klein
 
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“Little Rocket Man” Kim Jong-un appears to have learned well from his father Kim Jong-il in how to appear the reasonable negotiator while continuing to pursue an aggressive nuclear arms program. Also using a page out of the Iranian regime’s nuclear deal playbook, Kim Jong-un’s objective is to maneuver the United States, under pressure from the so-called international community, to make immediate concrete economic concessions in return for some limited steps to freeze or reduce the scope of North Korea’s program. To do this, Kim Jong-un, following a year of successive nuclear bomb and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, has reached out to South Korea, China and the Trump administration for direct diplomatic talks. All Kim Jong-un says he wants are guarantees of security for his country and normalization of relations. In return, he is ready to make what China’s state news media Xinhua described as “phased, synchronized” moves toward denuclearizing his country. This is essentially the same formula his father adopted back in 1994 in negotiating the “Agreed Framework,” and then again in 2005 and 2007. We all know how those attempts at diplomacy with North Korea turned out. They ended in failure, as North Korea pocketed the concessions it gained by making promises of denuclearization and each time cheated or walked away from its commitments.
Kim Jong-un has found himself in the grip of unprecedented international economic sanctions, including as implemented by China, North Korea’s most significant trading partner. He took the risk of such sanctions as the price of giving his regime nuclear arms and missile capabilities of such strength that he could face down the U.S. in any exchange of military threats. Kim succeeded at least in the short term last year in holding off any actual military reprisals. There was an exchange of taunts and shows of force but no preemptive military action taken by the Trump administration. President Trump opted instead to escalate the economic pressure, multilaterally and unilaterally, and to enlist China to help make it as painful as possible for the North Korean regime.
The new year brought a complete pivot by Kim Jong-un. He laid on a diplomatic “charm offensive” in pursuing his own version of a divide-and-conquer strategy vis a vis the United States, China and South Korea. There have been no nuclear bomb or intercontinental ballistic missile tests by the North Korean regime since last November. However, there appears to be satellite imagery evidence pointing to the firing up of a new nuclear reactor that could be employed to produce plutonium usable for making nuclear arms.
Last week, Kim took his first journey outside of North Korea to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping. He did so before the summit meeting he is scheduled to have with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, and presumably thereafter with President Trump sometime in May. Kim Jong-un used the South Korean government, which appears desperate to deescalate tensions on the South Korean Peninsula, to deliver Kim’s offer of a summit meeting to President Trump. However, Kim made sure that he first mended fences with China, since China is key to whether the current international solidarity behind the current multilateral economic sanctions imposed on the North Korean regime can remain effective.
"We speak highly of this visit," President Xi told Kim, as reported by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua. "Both Comrade Chairman and I have personally experienced and witnessed the development of China-DPRK relationship," President Xi added, using the acronym DPRK to refer to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. "This is a strategic choice and the only right choice both sides have made based on history and reality, the international and regional structure and the general situation of China-DPRK ties. This should not and will not change because of any single event at a particular time."
President Xi praised North Korea’s purported efforts in helping to bring about positive changes on the Korean Peninsula this year. He reiterated that China’s goal is still eventual denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, safeguarding peace and stability, and reliance on dialogue to resolve problems. He emphasized the need for maintaining honest communications and exchange of views between the two countries, including at the highest levels, which could be interpreted as an indirect criticism of Kim’s past nuclear arms and missile tests without first consulting China and an implied warning not to behave that way in the future.
For his part, Kim Jong-un said that he chose China as the destination of his first overseas visit to demonstrate the importance of the traditional friendship between the two countries. "In this spring full of happiness and hopes, I believe my first meeting with General Secretary Xi Jinping will yield abundant fruits of DPRK-China friendship, and facilitate peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," he declared. Kim was agreeable to more such high-level meetings. Kim also said that it was North Korea’s “consistent stand to be committed to denuclearization on the peninsula, in accordance with the will of late President Kim Il Sung and late General Secretary Kim Jong Il. The issue of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula can be resolved, if South Korea and the United States respond to our efforts with goodwill, create an atmosphere of peace and stability while taking progressive and synchronous measures for the realization of peace."
Kim was looking for assurances from the Chinese leader that China would oppose any military means of resolving the nuclear crisis, if future talks with the United States fail to materialize or fail to produce positive results.  He asked China to “jointly safeguard the trend of consultation and dialogue as well as peace and stability on the peninsula,” according to Xinhua. President Xi reaffirmed China’s opposition to any military strikes on the Korean Peninsula. But it is not clear whether he committed China to serving as North Korea’s protector in the event of a military strike by the United States.
World leaders and the United Nations hailed the Kim-Xi summit meeting. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ office issued a statement declaring that the Secretary General "views the latest positive developments as the start of a longer process of sincere dialogue, leading to sustainable peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula." Even the White House expressed cautious optimism, following China’s briefing the Trump administration on the visit by Kim Jong-un to Beijing. Included was a personal message from President Xi to President Trump. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Wednesday, “we feel like things are moving in the right direction."
We have seen this movie before, except for the prospect of a direct summit meeting between President Trump and the North Korean dictator, which appears to still be in the works. Kim Jong-un is obviously trying to box President Trump into agreeing to the same phased reciprocal approach that North Korea has exploited to its advantage before. This time, however, the gambit may not work if President Trump continues to hew to a hard line. So far, the signs are encouraging. The president will be advised by the new National Security Adviser John Bolton and the Secretary of State-designee Mike Pompeo, both of whom are highly skeptical of North Korea’s intentions. Moreover, the Trump administration is already signaling that it will not back off its maximum economic pressure strategy anytime soon.
Late last week, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Mission to the UN, it “secured Security Council support for the largest-ever UN sanctions designation package on North Korea. The UN Security Council’s 1718 North Korea Sanctions Committee unanimously approved 49 new UN designations – 21 shipping companies, one individual, and 27 ships – all aimed at countering North Korea’s illegal maritime smuggling activities to obtain oil and sell coal, and preventing certain entities and ships from aiding them in these efforts.” The statement thanked the international community for continuing to stand together “to keep up maximum pressure on the North Korean regime.” What makes this development especially significant is that it came after the meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un. This means that China is likely to adopt a wait-and-see attitude before it decides whether to break with the United States on continuing to exert maximum economic pressure on North Korea.
President Trump must continue using the stick of maximum economic pressure on North Korea and take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that China is and remains fully on board. He also needs to keep South Korea from yielding to the temptation of making premature concessions to buy a phony peace on the Korean Peninsula, even if it means holding back on finalizing the newly negotiated trade agreement with South Korea to keep South Korea in line. Only after North Korea significantly rolls back its nuclear arms and intercontinental ballistic missile programs in an irreversible and verifiable fashion should any concessions on easing the sanctions be considered. North Korea’s own history of cheating and broken commitments, together with the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, demonstrate the failure of strategic patience and appeasement. North Korea will only use relief from sanctions and protracted talks as an opportunity to fill in any remaining gaps in its nuclear arms and missile programs.

ABOUT JOSEPH KLEIN

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VIDEO: EXPOSING THE MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

How public schools are using your tax dollars to train students to be anti-Second Amendment activists.

April 2, 2018
 
Frontpagemag.com
 
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Editor's note: Below is Sean Fitzgerald's new video exposing the radical educators and administrators involved in organizing the March for Our Lives. Fitzgerald reveals how leftist public school operatives are openly using Americans' tax dollars to train students as anti-Second Amendment activists, brainwashing them to believe that "guns don't protect" and demonizing the NRA. The video was created in conjunction with the Freedom Center's Stop K-12 Indoctrination campaign. To read our new pamphlet on this issue, "Leftist Indoctrination in Our K-12 Public Schools," click here or order your own copy here.

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WHY WE NEED JOHN BOLTON AS NSA

The readiness to use force to help our friends -- and hurt our enemies.

April 2, 2018
 
Bruce Thornton
 
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Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Last week ex-CIA chief Michael Hayden signed a letter with a “bipartisan group of 115 national security leaders” that counsels the Trump administration and new National Security Advisor John Bolton not to jettison the nuclear deal with Iran. Hayden’s justification for this advice illustrates all the stale ideas and unexamined assumptions about foreign affairs that have brought us to this crisis in the first place––and why we  need the return to realism we are likely to see with Bolton at the helm.
Hayden starts by admitting that the deal has problems. Iran was on the economic ropes because of the sanctions, and so should have been the “suppliant,” not us. Hayden’s delicate indirection refers to Obama’s shameful eagerness for a deal, any deal in fact, to burnish his foreign policy “legacy” and please the “international community” with his commitment to “multilateralism” and “smart diplomacy” instead of military power. Hayden also notes Obama’s “bait-and-switch when selling the deal to Congress,” a reference to the post facto concessions to the regime, like “abandoned or altered positions on no notice inspections,” which of course make the whole idea of monitoring Iran’s activities a mere aspiration.
Hayden also knows that Iran is a “bad actor.” But this vague cliché cannot accurately describe a repressive, brutal regime that has for nearly forty years soaked its hands in American blood, and now has replaced the U.S. as the dominant power in the Middle East. And it downplays Iran’s role in destabilizing the region as it creates a Shia crescent from Syria to Yemen, and builds a proxy attack-force on Israel’s borders in order to bring the mullahs closer to fulfilling their eschatological dream of “wiping Israel off the map.”
But the vagueness of “bad actor” allows Hayden to make an astonishing claim like this one: “Still, Iran is further away from a weapon with this agreement than they would be without it.” Apart from the either-or fallacy in believing that total war is the only alternative to a bad deal, what possible information does Hayden have that makes this credible? What empirical evidence can he produce to buttress the certainty of such a claim? By what means are the inspectors able to ascertain that Iran is in fact living up to the deal, or even to know the existence or location of all its nuclear development facilities? And what about the preposterous begged question in the letter’s claim that the “Iran will be prohibited from exceeding severe limits” by “continuing, unprecedented international monitoring”? How does “severe” square with the IAEA’s inability to monitor Iran’s compliance with Section T, which bans “activities which could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device”?
And if cheating is detected––as it already has been–– what “action” will the U.S. “take,” as the letter says it can? What further “cheating” would trigger that action, when prior documented violations haven’t? Getting the EU and Russia to go along with “tough sanctions,” when the Europeans are doing big business with Iran, and Russia is delighted with the status quo, one that empowers its partner in the region and discomfits its rival? Or do they mean military action? That has virtually been off the table for years, which is why the letter avoids bringing it up as an option. The 115 “experts” have nothing specific or convincing to say about how Iran, absent force, can be compelled to abide by the terms of the agreement, let alone how the agreement can prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The fact is, neither Hayden nor any of his fellow “experts” can assure us that in less than a decade Iran will not end up with a nuclear arsenal even with the agreement. Supporters of the deal are making an existential wager without any clue of the odds the agreement will work, or any recognition that they are gambling with our security and interests and those of our regional allies, not to mention even further proliferation.
The lack of specific details and evidence that support the claims of the agreement’s efficacy explains the rest of the letter, which mostly focuses on superficial public relations rather than hard facts. “Direct U.S.-Iran communications” will facilitate “crisis management,” we are assured. That is, when conflicts arise from our clashing interests, talking it out will defuse escalation. Notice the assumption: an apocalyptic fanatic regime that has fomented terrorism, murdered our citizens, helped our enemies kill our soldiers, threatens our most valuable allies in the region, and believes we are the “Great Satan,” will be deterred from acting on its beliefs because we “communicate” with them.
The “experts” seemingly cannot comprehend that for a regime bent on aggression, diplomatic talk is merely a tactic to misdirect its enemy in order to buy time until it’s powerful enough to get what it wants by force. To paraphrase First Lord of the Admiralty Duff Cooper after Chamberlain’s Munich fiasco, the “experts” want to address the mullahs “through the language of sweet reasonableness.” In fact, they are “more open to the language of the mailed fist.”
A similar doubtful benefit of keeping the agreement, the letter claims, is that North Korea will behave better because it will not be able to say that the U.S. “abrogates agreements without cause,” and so the Norks will be “more likely to negotiate an end to its nuclear program.” Do the letter-writers even know the history of “agreements” with North Korea, the terms of which we kept but that they serially violated? Did those thirty years of broken promises and futile bribes make them more amenable to denuclearizing? What a failure of imagination, to think that the “good faith” of the U.S. regarding a duplicitous Iran will so impress Rocket Man that he will voluntarily give up the only thing keeping him from suffering the fates of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi. And don’t forget, the “agreement” with Iran was not ratified by the Senate, and so remains the property of Barack Obama, and is not binding obligation on, or the responsibility of the sovereign people.
The fantasies in this letter keep coming. If we stick with the agreement, the letter says, “other states in the region” will not be as motivated to develop their own nuclear assets because they may suffer the “intense scrutiny and restrictions” put on Iran. What a host of begged questions lurk in this statement––that Iran will not acquire a weapon because of the agreement, that Saudi Arabia doesn’t know the history of proliferation that was not deterred by “sanctions” and “inspections,” or that a country that sees its security and interests under existential threat will patiently wait for an agreement maybe to work before arming itself. Especially when the agreement is being serially violated, and its champions can’t guarantee that it will even work, given the abject failure of similar agreements in the case of North Korea.
The last boon the letter claims for staying the course is the “enhancement” of “U.S. status and leadership.” The Europeans, for example, will be so pleased with us that they will eagerly pitch in when other threats arise. Which in the event means their usual paltry contributions of men and matériel to NATO operations, or blustering rhetoric and meaningless votes in the U.N. Security Council. Here’s the mantra of “multilateralism,” the magical thinking that allies will pursue our interests and security rather than their own because we stuck to a dangerous agreement that they favored. And why shouldn’t they? The business they’re doing with Iran is more important than stopping a genocidal regime threatening a country like Israel they don’t like anyway.
Next, sticking to the agreement will give us the “influence” and “credibility” that will encourage our allies to support us when we have to reimpose punitive sanctions. Again, sovereign nations do not take action unless it serves their own interests, and right now our “partners” find their interests served by a sanctions-free Iran. And “credibility” and “influence” do not flow from putting the interests of other states ahead of our own, but from our willingness to punish our rivals and enemies. Countries bandwagon with a great power because it acts like one, not because they like us or we serve their interests at the expense of our own. Do the “experts” really think that France or Germany, let alone Russia, will eagerly line up to support us if we impose harsh sanctions on Iran that cost Europeans billions of Euros?
Finally, the letter predicts, sticking to the agreement will “deny” Iran the pretext of blaming their development of weapons on our abandonment of a bad deal. Again, international public relations and spin are paramount for the “experts,” as though our prestige depends on whether people like or admire us. Quite the opposite: their liking us usually reflects their satisfaction with our self-abasement and subordination of our interests to theirs. That’s why the “international community” loved Barack Obama so much, and now despise Donald Trump––he puts America’s interests ahead of the mythical “international community.”
As for Iran, it doesn’t need any excuse to keep doing what it already is: arming itself with missiles and nuclear weapons that will catapult them into being the region’s most powerful, and virtually untouchable, hegemon. Sure, they’ll mouth pretexts for their actions based on ideas, like åsigning agreements in good faith, that they know most Western nations endorse. Even Osama bin Laden justified his terrorist murder because the U.S. didn’t sign the Kyoto climate accords favored by the EU. But we shouldn’t take seriously such specious rationalizations, or base our actions on such delusions of shared principles.
This letter is a compendium of the failed assumptions of delusional internationalism. It also explains why John Bolton’s appointment is so necessary. His career has demonstrated a realist understanding of interstate relations, which are based on the diverse, conflicting, and often zero-sum interests of nation-states, rather than on a lofty idealism peculiar to the West. And he recognizes that a prestige based on our willingness to use force to help our friends and hurt our enemies is the necessary precondition of successful diplomacy and negotiations. Bolton’s challenge to the fossilized institutionalist paradigm explains the intense dislike of him. That animus alone is a good enough reason to make him National Security Advisor.

ABOUT BRUCE THORNTON

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.
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'Three Little Terrorists' Represent All That's Gone Wrong In 30 Years

image: http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/images/recent/pamobsept202016.jpg
News Image BY STEPHEN M. FLATOW/JNS.ORG APRIL 02, 2018
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Three Palestinian Arab terrorists were captured this week on their way to massacre Israeli Jews. Let's see what we can learn from this incident.

To begin with, it reminds us of the incredible, stubborn refusal of many major media outlets to use the "T"-word. The three would-be killers were armed with hand grenades and knives. Talk about being caught red-handed! 
Yet the Associated Press could not bring itself to acknowledge that they were terrorists. According to the A.P., they were merely "three Palestinians from Gaza." Like Osama bin Laden was "a Saudi Arabian visiting Pakistan."

Despite the fact that the terrorists were on their way to perpetrate a massacre, the A.P. didn't think the story merited more than four paragraphs. I guess it wouldn't want to strain its correspondent's typing fingers by asking to delve more into the implications of the incident.

Not that The New York Times or the The Washington Post was any better. They didn't think the story was worth troubling their correspondents at all. They simply reprinted the tiny A.P. article.

The Associated Press articles mentioned, vaguely, that "it was the second such breach of the border in recent days." That's it. No explanation as to who was doing the "breaching" or why. It sounds as if they were innocent prisoners making a break for freedom in some low-budget B movie from 1952.

Israeli media reports, however, revealed the rest of the story. It turns out that last week, a group of terrorists from Gaza carried out an arson attack on Israeli construction machinery near the border. It's a good thing that no one was on the scene at the time. The terrorists surely would have burned them to death; they've done that before.

Anybody out there remember the name Amnon Pomerantz? I didn't think so. The names of Jewish victims of Palestinian terrorism tend to be quickly forgotten.
It's a shame that American Jewish and Zionist organizations don't make more of an effort to keep their names alive. It's the least we can do to honor the innocent victims--and to remind us of the nature of Israel's enemies.

On Sept. 20, 1990, Amnon Pomerantz, age 46, was driving near the Gaza Strip. He was returning from a visit to his 2-year-old son, who was hospitalized. Pomerantz took a wrong turn and found himself in the El-Bureij refugee camp. Before I describe what happened to him, note the significance of the fact that it took place in September 1990. 

Throughout the previous two years, the State Department and the Jewish "peace" camp were insisting that the Palestinian Arabs had become more moderate and peace-seeking. The United States even extended official recognition to the PLO--which it had to withdraw in May 1990 after another brazen PLO terrorist attack.

Not only that, but the Israeli government had been experimenting with a new, softer approach to the Palestinians in the hope that they would reciprocate. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported at the time that the Israelis' new approach involved "a low military profile in territories and limiting the use of deadly force by IDF personnel."

It turns out that the Arabs in El-Bureij had a different attitude regarding "deadly force." As soon as they spotted the yellow license plates of Pomerantz's car--revealing that he was an Israeli--they tried to stone him to death. "A crowd surrounded his car and began to smash it with heavier rocks and concrete blocks," reported JTA, calling it a "savage murder."

"Pomerantz was struck unconscious. His car was then set on fire and he burned to death."
What happened to Amnon Pomerantz was not an anomaly. It was an illustration of the seething Jew-hatred typical of Gaza Arab society, then and now. No matter how many press releases Peace Now issued claiming to see signs of Palestinian moderation, no matter how State Department officials insisted that there would be peace if Israel withdrew from Gaza, stoning and burning Jews to death was still one of the most popular sports in the region.

Sadly, such murders did not dampen the Jewish left's campaign for an Israeli surrender of Gaza. On the contrary, their campaign intensified. Only instead of the old slogans about "coexistence," the left adopted a new mantra: separation. The Israeli presence in Gaza would mean endless casualties, they argued. Israel should withdraw for its own good.

All the Arabs in Gaza wanted was to be rid of Israelis, the left insisted; if Israel withdrew, there would be peace. After all, they argued, why should Gaza's Arabs be interested in conquering Sderot, Beersheva or Ashkelon? That wouldn't make any sense. Many weary Israelis accepted that logic, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He withdrew Israel's forces from every inch of Gaza. He bulldozed every Jewish town in the area.

Lo and behold, peace did not reign. Instead, thousands of rockets from Gaza rained down on Israel. Palestinian terrorists went on trying to infiltrate Israel in order to slaughter Jews in Sderot, Beersheva and Ashkelon. And the international news media continues to downplay Palestinian violence.

Those three little terrorists who crossed into Israel from Gaza this week were nothing to worry about, according to the media and the left. But everything that has happened regarding Gaza throughout the past 30 years proves that reality is exactly the opposite of what they tell us.

Originally published at JNS.org - reposted with permission.
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