Had the advisors to President Trump read my blog essay on "How to Resolve the North Korea Crisis" of August 10, 2017 (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2017/08/how-to-resolve-north-korea-crisis.html), could they have made him 'famous' at the United Nations? If Mr. Trump had presented my two-tier approach to resolving this crisis, which is not only politically sound but also morally legitimate, they would hail him as a statesman by now. Does this sound conceited or arrogant? It might seem at the beginning of this brief essay, but hopefully will no longer at the end.
Imagine Mr. Trump, heeding the advice I proposed in my blog essay, saying something like the following in his speech at the United Nations Assembly: "I assure the world public that the U.S. will never use nuclear force against North Korea first. I guarantee the North Korean regime that the U.S. and its allies will not forcefully implement regime change in North Korea. My political administration will pursue the establishment of a peace treaty to that effect. While this process is ongoing and until we achieve a satisfying result, the U.S. will observe the principle of 'deterrence by denial.' It will implement missile defense capabilities and civil defense measures to protect itself and its allies if North Korea decides to abandon this proposal for resolving the crisis between our nations peacefully. However, I assure the world community of nations that if North Korea should strike or attempt to hit the U.S. or its allies with weapons of mass destruction first, the United States will strike back with all its might at whatever cost this might entail for the North Korean people."
This statement would have not only been prudent to say in the sense of putting the U.S. on the moral high ground in this conflict. It would also acknowledge that the experts in Washington D. C. had finally understood what North Korea's aggressive posture and its constant missile and nuclear testing is all about: to generate some atomic capacity to deter the United States from regime-change intervention! As mentioned previously, only the nuclear capability can be the big "equalizer" and dissuade potential imperialist intentions even on a conventional military level.
Did the world not watch or forget about what happened not long ago, i.e., in Libya, in 2011, at the Obama/Clinton cabinet's hands, when U.S. and NATO forces launched an air campaign to support dubious insurgent groups against the Libyan military and government forces? Such was the reward Libya's leader Muammar Gadhafi, murdered in the streets, received for his retreat from pursuing nuclear weapons and his trust and handshake with Obama and incumbent European heads of state at the time. And have we not observed what the U.S. did to Syria in the misguided and failed regime-change attempt to oust President Assad, arming terrorists and insurgents, supporting al-Qaeda and ISIS and other groups in the region, causing unspeakable and unnecessary mayhem? Now the Russians had to restore stability and prop Assad, and at this point, it is not hard to predict that the Syrian intervention attempt will end up as a massive embarrassment for the United States. Aside from that: What about all the waste of human life and treasure on both sides? Were some military-industrial profit and the satisfaction of Mr. Obama's ideological arrogance indeed worth the chaos, the cost of lives, and the unleashing of refugees and displaced people onto the shores of Europe?
As unfortunate as the most likely acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by North Korea is, it comes for good reasons and a clear rationale that the North Korean regime hides behind its seemingly erratic behavior. The U.S.' policy failures nourished this rationale.
The U.S. and the international community should further pursue containment and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula; however, they should not make it a condition for peace. The probable possession of specific nuclear capabilities of North Korea does not and must not justify a preemptive strike.
Instead of further pursuing hypocritical foreign affairs policies that cause more trouble than resolving issues, it is high time to arrive at some collective realization of past follies in foreign affairs among Washington's elites and to change course.
This nation and its leader need to eliminate the war-mongering neoliberal and neoconservative nomenclature in the U.S. State Department and among the advisory bodies to the White House. Leaders of nations cannot know everything, but we expect them to have an excellent and pragmatic judgment that enables them to choose wisely among policy proposals. Without wise choice offered, they will most likely fail.
