US administrations don’t negotiate. They demand, wanting other nations subservient to their interests.
US global political influence is waning, not growing. Yet its military strength is an ominous force to be reckoned with – armed with super-weapons, willing to do whatever it takes to enforce it will on other nations.
Bullying doesn’t win friends and influence people, just the opposite. Carrots work much better than sticks.
Washington consistently reneges on promises. Rare exceptions prove the rule, why it can never be trusted – North Korean leader Kim Jong-un keenly mindful of what he’s up against in dealing with Trump.
His neocon National Security Advisor John Bolton earlier called for preemptive war on the DPRK. Separately he said
summit talks will “foreshorten the amount of time that we’re going to waste in negotiations that will never produce the result we want.”
Above all, Kim seeks world community security guarantees, most of all from Washington, never before gotten, highly unlikely from Trump whatever comes out of summit talks and what follows.
From Truman to Trump, 13 US presidents refused to end an uneasy armistice on the Korean peninsula.
Will summit and follow-up talks change things – given the most ideologically hardline regime empowered in Washington in its history.
It’s foolhardy to believe what hasn’t happened since the late 1940s is possible now – notably with US rage for dominance over all other countries, color revolutions and naked aggression waged against sovereign independent ones not fully bending to Washington’s will.
For decades, US administrations refused to endorse a formal end to the 1950s war, along with guaranteeing North Korean security.
Throughout its history, the DPRK never attacked another nation, victimized by Harry Truman’s aggression devastating the country, turning much of it to rubble, killing millions of its people, a memory seared into the consciousness of its leadership.
North Korea developed nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile for defensive purposes only – because of feared US aggression, notably with militant Trump regime hardliners in charge of geopolitical policymaking, naked aggression in multiple theaters its most prominent feature, North Korea likely on their target list if summit and follow-up talks fail.
Pyongyang seeks cooperative relations with the West and regional nations. It wants peace, not war, a formal end to the 1950s conflict, its sovereign independence respected, unacceptable sanctions lifted, and firm security guarantees above all else.
If achieved, a nuclear deterrent no longer would be needed. Given Washington’s rage for global hegemony, its longterm hostility toward the DPRK, its aim to transform all sovereign independent nations into US vassal states, and its deplorable history of reneging on promises, it’s pure fantasy to believe bilateral talks will end well.
Whatever is publicly said by both countries following summit and follow-up talks, hostile US policy toward the DPRK is virtually certain to continue over the longterm.
The historical record speaks for itself, Trump the most belligerent of all US administrations, exceeding the worst of his predecessors geopolitically and domestically.
Photo-op handshakes and smiles in Singapore aren’t likely to change a thing.
The threat of war on the Korean peninsula remains as long as US hardliners are in charge of geopolitical policymaking.
I’d love to be optimistic for what lies ahead. No credible evidence justifies it.
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Featured image is from Countercurrents.
