Trump I and Kim III: Who is Taming Whom?

President Trump is still posting tweets which threaten North Korea with annihilation and obliteration. Trump’s other tweets contain expressions and terms which fill the American vocabulary to the brim of arrogance, egotism and blindness to the “other,” even when less than a yard away. This is particularly the case where the discussion concerns a country that has not shown any fear or hesitation, nor resorted to apologizing or asking forgiveness from the white master; something which the United States so blatantly represents, a world police force that wants to preserve its own interests, whether or not doing so is illegal or whether it contradicts the interests of most of the world’s nations, including those classified as allies—with the exception of Israel, of course.

Trump objected when Tehran ran a successful test for ballistic missiles with a range of 1200 miles and the ability to carry multiple warheads, simply because, in Trump’s own words, it “threatens Israel.” However, he does not care if such a missile threatens any other state, whether in the region or outside of it. This indicates the nature of the White House occupant’s agenda. His own political and personal future is still unclear, and remains under the shadow of ongoing investigations into an issue that has clearly been exaggerated by America’s “party of war,”* a party which controls American policy and which is relentlessly striving to bring the Cold War back onto the international scene by demonizing Russia and holding it responsible for the decline of America’s role in the world. This party also endeavors to demonize Russia vis-a-vis the insinuations about the last American presidential election in which both the pillars of the Republican Party, and especially the Democratic Party are insisting Moscow interfered one way or another; it was said in the latest intelligence fabrication that Moscow interfered in at least 22 American states during and before the polls opened last November.

What Are We Facing?

Trump’s most recent tweets—published at dawn, Monday, Oct. 2—were in response to a speech by the North Korean foreign minister. It included a tweet which said that he had just heard the foreign minister of North Korea speak at the United Nations, and that if the foreign minister echoed the thoughts of “Little Rocket Man” (referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) that Korea would not be around much longer!

It reiterated what Trump said before the U.N. General Assembly about his readiness to exterminate an independent sovereign state—which is a U.N. member and which has a population approaching 30 million—for the sole reason that the country refuses to submit to the dictates of the United States and raise the white flag of unequivocal and unconditional surrender to Trump. The diplomatic option offers an opportunity to ease tension and seek compromise based on mutual concessions, where Pyongyang has declared categorically that it will not accept a fate like the regimes of Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein. This, comes in addition to the massive military maneuvers which simulate an American, South Korean and sometimes Japanese invasion of North Korea, not to mention the deployment of additional batteries of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system anti-ballistic long-range missiles near the North Korean border and harassment by American strategic bombers near North Korean airspace. Yet, Washington, as well as Seoul and Tokyo, see such actions as their indisputable and irreversible right.

If some in the Arab region had believed that Trump, with these idiotic policies which do not take into account the international balance of power or recognize the retreat and weakening of America’s world role, was going to reinstate the U.S. as the world’s police and sole superpower as was the case after the end of the Cold War, they, like Trump and the “party of war” in Washington, are both delusional and naïve at the same time. This is not only because the phase of American decline has begun, whether it is characterized as occurring slowly or relatively quickly, but also because Trump continues his intimidation and threats of military action against states that he alone selects (no one shares in this except his followers and the delusional)—North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Syria and other countries and organizations that do not walk the American line or dedicate themselves to praising the white master without dissent, protest or even a different opinion.

Trump’s cheap, rundown vocabulary and language, which are not suitable for the head of a state of a country like the United States, and his claim that “he will tame the madman who is holding the fire”** in addition to his lowlife expressions about a “Little Rocket Man,” do not change the fact that this real estate trader, who came to his position by accident and will leave, perhaps soon and in great humiliation, is plunging international politics and the diplomatic traditions which the family of civilized nations has lived by to the lowest depths. This is a dangerous and disastrous road, because it deliberately ignores the realities in the field and the balance of international power. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it, he is convinced that Trump “will not hit North Korea, because he is certain that it has a nuclear bomb.”

Furthermore, Beijing and Moscow will not allow him – whatever the price – to resort to such an idiotic option. This begs the question: Will Trump succeed in taming Kim III? Or will the latter continue to challenge Trump by describing him as “mentally disturbed, a megalomaniac, the king of lies,” or “a gangster who has unleashed violent and reckless expressions … a brandisher of his nuclear arsenal?”***

…Time will tell.

*Translator’s Note: The author appears to use the term “party of war” to describe the party that has led the charge against Trump’s ties to Russia (the Democratic Party) and later in the essay to describe Trump’s own party or supporters (the Republican Party).

**Translator’s Note: It was Kim Jong Un, who in responding to Trump’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly, stated that he would “surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” English language media do not report on any statements by Trump resembling this. A review of the full text of Trump’s U.N. speech and his Twitter feed also do not support this quote.

***Translator’s note: The author’s description of Kim Jong Un’s descriptions of Trump resemble, but do not match, what English language media reported he said in response to Trump’s U.N. General Assembly speech. For example, media reports about Kim’s full response do not indicate that he called Trump a liar or a brandisher of nuclear weapons.