It’s clear what both countries want. For Washington it’s “complete, verifiable, irreversible (DPRK) denuclearization.”
Pyongyang’s willingness to comply depends on assured security guarantees – what Washington rejected for seven decades, including under less belligerent administrations than Trump’s.
Under both right wings of Washington’s one party system, ruling authorities can never be trusted, its promises most often breached – Trump’s JCPOA pullout the latest example.
The lesson of Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Libya under Muammar Gaddafi is well understood in Pyongyang – its leadership not wanting the DPRK to become another US imperial trophy.
Can North Korea fare better than other US targeted countries? Can summit and follow-up talks turn a new page after decades of US hostility?
Will an extremist administration under Trump deal fairly with North Korea? The Kim Jong-un/Trump summit is the beginning of a likely long process.
It’s hard imagining a durable positive outcome when concluded. Why this time when virtually never before – betrayal happening time and again with most every country Washington deals with.
North Korea is right to be cautious, knowing the kind of regime it’s dealing with, one never to be trusted – hoping for a good outcome, knowing the chance is slim at best, most likely unattainable like always before.
Security guarantees by China, Russia, South Korea and Japan aren’t good enough. Assurance from Washington with teeth matters most.
Given how often US administrations pledge one thing and do another, how can North Korea or any other countries take any US administration at its word.
It blames other nations for its high crimes and broken promises, invents reasons to be hostile to independent states it doesn’t control.
North Korea’s best defense against feared US aggression is a nuclear deterrent and long-range ballistic missile delivery system.
Why would it relinquish what best protects its security in dealings with an adversary never to be trusted.
Is there any reason to believe talks with Washington can achieve durable peace and stability on the peninsula, lifting unacceptable sanctions, a formal end to the 1950s war agreed to by South Korea and America – and for the first time in DPRK history, normalized relations with the West and its regional neighbors.
It requires a giant leap of faith to think what’s always been unattainable is within reach now in dealing with perhaps the most extremist administration in US history.
It’s waging endless wars of aggression, wants all sovereign independent governments toppled, and is militantly hostile to the DPRK.
Don’t be fooled by an upcoming first-time-ever summit between a North Korean and US leader.
When all is said and done, US betrayal is the most likely outcome – always before with Pyongyang, most often with other nations in the modern and earlier eras.
Entering into talks with Washington, Kim should be mindful of longstanding US duplicity, that no US administrations can be trusted – maybe Trump’s least of all.
Will this time be different? Did America ever keep its word in dealing with North Korea throughout its history?
Why then expect it ahead for the first time ever! Believing otherwise is a sucker’s bet almost sure to lose.
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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
