R-e-s-p-e-c-t!

No, John Bolton’s Libya model – where the dictator agrees to give up a nuclear arms program in exchange for accepting his rule only to be deposed a few years later with help from those who pledged to leave him in power – was not the way to convince Kim Jong-Un to give up his nukes. And trust me, as much as Kim wants more money in his totalitarian state, no Mr. Trump, opening up American-driven economic opportunity – even a McDonalds in Pyongyang – isn’t the big prize in his eyes. The imminent on-again-off-again-but-now-back-on-again direct Trump/Kim meeting in Singapore has two autocrats trying to move the other where he just doesn’t want to go.

The Americans want Kim to surrender his existing nuclear warheads (estimated at 20 to 70), tear apart his capacity to make more and allow inspectors free access to verify wherever and whenever they choose, but nukes be gone! We would accord the North some economic benefits and probably agree to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and perhaps our nuclear weapons in nearby countries (e.g., Japan). Kim wants to be recognized as a world statesman in a nation with full nuclear weapons, ready to take his place with the other nuclear nations to negotiate a global movement to denuclearize. He’ll give up his nukes as part of a global movement to denuclearize. He may agree to stop testing, but he already has those weapons ready if he needs them.

“‘The common mistake is to assume when the North Koreans talk about denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, they’re talking about giving up all their weapons,’ said Victor Cha, who headed Asian affairs in the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and who took part in nuclear talks with North Korea at the time.

“‘It’s not really the way we look at it, which is ‘Crate it up and take it out,’ ‘ said Cha, who now heads the Korea program at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Rather, he said, North Koreans view denuclearization as a long-term aspiration, the way Americans talk of someday abolishing nuclear weapons from the globe. North Korea has a long list of other grievances, and could demand the removal of U.S. troops, or even the U.S. nuclear umbrella, from South Korea.

“‘It’s an endless list,’ said Michael Green, another veteran of Bush-era negotiations with North Korea. ‘They will keep adding to the list of things we have to do in order for them to denuclearize until the cows come home.’”

“Most experts say Pyongyang wants to be recognized as a full-fledged nuclear power with the weapons it has, but with global obligations, much as then-isolated communist China’s nuclear arms program ultimately was accepted after President Nixon’s historic visit to Beijing in 1972.” Los Angeles Times, June 3^rd.

Indeed, it’s a common argument among rising nuclear powers. What justifies the United States and the West, then Russia and China, having nuclear weapons and then to decide the future right of other nations to have such weapons. Israel. India. Pakistan. North Korea… and perhaps Iran someday (I suspect sooner now that the US has pulled out of the six party nuclear accord that contained Iran’s nuclear program). What gives “you, America, the right” to tell the world who does or does not have the right to have a nuclear capacity? Why does America even get to protest… the only nation ever to deploy a nuclear weapon (two in fact) against an enemy… civilian targets with devastating effect?

Could Trump pull off a complete denuclearization of North Korea? It is possible, but experts see a long process and that to be practical, the results (if there are any) may be to start with less. Whatever the outcome, this is probably going to be a drawn-out process that could take years. But so far, Kim Jong-un has played Donald Trump like a fiddle. Kim appears reasonable. He has China on his side again. He got a place on the world stage without making a single concession, including a face-to-face with his arch enemy, the President of the United States. He’s already worked out a modus vivendi to South Korea’s President Moon, right under Trump’s nose… without Trump. And what have we got for our troubles so far… Exactly.

I’m Peter Dekom, and global diplomacy and “The Art of the Deal” are absolutely unrelated skill-sets.