North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un may have stunned many when he offered to speak with United States President Donald Trump and even offered up the possibility of ending the regime’s feared nuclear weapons program.
But some think it may all be a ruse, and that includes the man set to become Trump’s National Security Adviser.
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton feels Kim’s offer of talks may be a diversionary tactic – one that may end with North Korea finally developing a nuclear weapon capable of striking the White House.
According to Bolton, North Korea is “about nine months to a year away from having a missile with a nuclear weapon on time that can hit America,” U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) tells Fox News Sunday.
“He (Kim) sees these negotiations as a way of buying time, that’s what they’ve done in the past,” says Graham.
The idea that North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons program seems ludicrous. North Korea’s has long stated its desire to “reunify” the Korean peninsula, which in reality means invading and occupying South Korea and looting it of its wealth and resources to bail out the failing North.
But under the terms of the cease-fire agreement that ended the 1950s Korean War and divided the peninsula in two, the United States maintains a massive military presence in South Korea, to deter the planned invasion.
After decades of failing to convince the U.S. to leave, North Korea developed a nuclear weapons program for two purposes.
First, the North Korean dictatorship keeps its people under control by teaching them from birth that the United States is planning to invade and occupy the North, and that strike could come at any time.
North Korean elementary and middle schools even have a dedicated “Party Committee Education” room where young children are shown photos of raped women and butchered babies and are taught the atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers who may strike at any minute and do the same to them.
The nuclear weapons program, which itself is the subject of entire classes and classrooms, is sold as the Kims’ brilliant masterstroke that is keeping the U.S. at bay.
Second, the nuclear weapons program is intended to be a bargaining chip, which North Korea hopes can be cashed in, in exchange for sanctions relief and total withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the peninsula.
It would be unlikely that Kim would give up nuclear weapons without demanding concessions from the U.S. that go far beyond lifting a few sanctions.
North Korea has made the same offer of “denuclearization” talks to Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. When limited talks were offered, North Korea continued to develop its program covertly.
However, Trump’s decision to increase pressure on Communist China, on whom North Korea relies on for most of its trade, has placed unprecedented pressure on Kim and may force him to give up more than he planned.
Nonetheless, Bolton may have a point. After initially offering to call off all nuclear testing during the 2018 Winter Olympics, surveillance satellites reveal new activity at a North Korean “dual-use” nuclear reactor capable of developing materials for use in atomic weapons.
Is Kim Jong Un’s offer to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons a real promise? While Kim faces more pressure than ever before, both outside and inside his borders, experts like Bolton feel this may be just another scam by the world’s most brutal dictatorship.
AAN Staff
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