gracchusdixit

Within hours of Donald Trump returning from his much-vaunted “summit” with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, which amounted to little more than a handshake and a photo-op, the chattering classes converged on a narrative that quickly congealed into conventional wisdom.  This narrative holds that, although the self-adulatory gab-fest between Trump and Kim produced next to nothing of substance, the mere fact that the two countries are talking is a step forward, with the result that we are safer today than we were six months ago, when Trump and Kim were trading bellicose, brink-of-war threats, each bragging about whose “button” was bigger than whose.  This theory of the case is complete nonsense.  Worse than that, it is a dangerous misrepresentation of what Donald Trump has actually done.  Far from being safer today, we are at much greater risk.

To begin with, the credence given to the Twitter war that Trump and Kim were waging six months ago was always far greater than it deserved.  It should be obvious that Trump is a bag of wind, so puffed up with his own bullying grandiosity that he cannot contain himself.  When he doesn’t get his way or perceives some slight to his fragile ego, he will threaten anyone and everyone—usually from a distance and well out of harm’s way.  In any personal encounter, on the other hand, he invariably cowers and caves.  That is because Donald Trump is fundamentally a coward.  All his talk about “fire and fury,” all his jibes about “little rocket man,” were delivered from the safety of the White House or the warm cocoon of his Twitter account.  When he eventually came face to face with Kim in Singapore, he was capable of nothing but oohing and aahing.   

Kim himself is more opaque.  Like the country he rules, he is a cipher, and no sensible person would claim to know what he is really up to.  Nonetheless, the three-generation history of the Kim regime suggests that the current incarnation of the dynasty is, like his predecessors, interested in survival above all else.  He is a murderous dictator, to be sure, but he does not appear to be either a fool or an idiot.  Precipitating a war with the United States would be worse than folly and idiocy; it would be armageddon.  It is reasonable to assume that Kim knows that.  It is no less reasonable to assume that his war of words with Trump was a tactical calculation rather than an existential threat.

If we were not on the brink of war six months ago, as I very much doubt we were, we are left with the question of what was accomplished in Singapore to justify Trump’s claim that we now are safer than we were.  The only honest answer is:  Absolutely nothing.  Quite to the contrary, the “summit” between Trump and Kim was an unmitigated disaster for the security of the United States and our allies.

First, the “agreement” signed by the two leaders committed North Korea to nothing beyond the vague goal of “denuclearizing” the Korean Peninsula.  What that actually means was not defined, and it is by no means clear that Kim’s understanding of the term coincides with ours.  Apart from the question of definition, no timetable was agreed to, no promises were made regarding the elimination of specific nuclear materials or weapons, and no mechanism of verification was even mentioned.  After the “summit” was concluded, Trump made the bold claim that “many, many” people would soon be on the ground in North Korea to verify denuclearization.  There is nothing in the agreement itself to substantiate that claim, nor has the North Korean government said a word about it since Trump and Kim left Singapore.  When recently asked about the issue of verification, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo bristled, slamming the question as “insulting and ridiculous”.  Whenever someone evades a question by attacking the question itself, you know you’ve touched a nerve.

Second and far more importantly, Trump made needless concessions to North Korea that undermine our credibility, our security, and the security of our allies.  He unilaterally decided to end American participation in military exercises with South Korea and Japan, without so much as a call to alert those allies of his intentions.  He sent a clear signal to Russia and China that the United States would do nothing if they eased sanctions on North Korea, which they promptly did.  He announced that he would happily invite Kim Jung Un to the White House.  

Linger on that for a moment.  Donald J. Trump wants to welcome to “the People’s House” a murderous dictator who has starved and terrorized his own people, a man who has been condemned for committing crimes against humanity.  This is the man Trump now praises as “talented” and “tough”.  This is the man Trump suggests may someday sleep in the bedroom once occupied by Abraham Lincoln.  The mere thought is an obscenity.

And what did we get, what did the world get, for this obscenity, for all Trump’s concessions and lavish praise of one of the most brutal dictators on the planet?  Zilch.

The obvious question is why, and the answer is abundantly clear.  The answer is that Donald Trump, far from being the “tough guy” he plays on television, is in reality a weak and desperate man.  As a result, he needed the “optics” of summitry far more than Kim Jung Un and was ready to give away the store even before the doors of the store opened.  The “great negotiator” replayed the script of the endless bankruptcies and failures that have defined his business career:  promise more than you can possibly deliver, renege on your promises, try to bully your way out of failure, and in the end, cave, accepting whatever lifeline is offered.  

When Trump returned from Singapore, he announced—via Twitter, of course—that Americans could “sleep well tonight”.  That was a lie, merely the latest in a lifetime of lies.  None of us should “sleep well tonight” or tomorrow night or the many nights that lie ahead.  Thanks to Donald Trump, we are in greater danger than ever.  Until this monster leaves the White House, none of us should “sleep well”.