It looks like Donald Trump – “stable genius” and negotiator extraordinaire – is about to run into some problems when it comes to convincing a skeptical world that he managed to solve one of the most vexing foreign policy issues in the history of modern statecraft simply by employing his patented combination of Twitter bombast, overt threats and “just kidding, we’re all friends” photo ops.
Mike Pompeo was all smiles when departing for and arriving in Pyongyang this week for talks with Kim and his hermit regime about the “modalities” of denuclearization. On Saturday, America’s top diplomat tried his best to pretend like things went according to plan.
Pompeo described the discussions as “productive” and undertaken in “good faith,” an ironic way to describe things given that this latest high level diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang comes amid rampant reports that North Korea is moving ahead with its weapons program despite Trump’s protestations and assurances.
The Secretary of State went on to say that he and new bestie Kim Yong Chol talked at length about the timeline for denuclearization to which Pompeo swears North Korea remains committed.
But North Korea had a different take on things.
According to their Foreign Ministry, the talks were “deeply regrettable”, a characterization Pyongyang attributes to Pompeo’s “unilateral and gangster-like” negotiating strategy.
As the New York Times dryly notes, “Pompeo and his entourage offered no immediate evidence that they had come away with anything tangible to show that North Korea was willing to surrender its nuclear and missile weapons programs.”
Right. And the reason they didn’t “offer” any such evidence is because they don’t have any.
In fact, they have the opposite of that and so does the American public, because, again, intelligence reports suggest the North is simply trying to hide its weapons and conceal production sites while securing concessions from a bamboozled Donald Trump.
Apparently, things started to go off the rails on Saturday when Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol couldn’t agree on whether Mike “slept well”.
Here’s the exchange, as recounted by the Times:
Kim Yong Chol: This isn’t your first visit to our country, yet this is your first night in our country. Did you sleep well last night?
Pompeo: I did, I did, thank you for the accommodation.
Kim Yong Chol: But we did have very serious discussions on very important matters yesterday. So thinking about those discussions, you might have not slept well last night.
Pompeo: Director Kim, I slept just fine.
There was, apparently, no agreement on how Mike in fact slept, but shortly thereafter, he reportedly screwed the proverbial pooch by accidentally referring to Kim Jong-Un as North Korea’s “president.”
“Building a relationship between our two countries is vital for a brighter North Korea and the success that our two presidents demand of us”, Pompeo said, a comment that may well have offended the North Koreans.
As Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea analyst at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts told the Times, Kim’s grandfather is, was, and always will be the “president” of North Korea – that’s why Kim Il-sung posthumously holds the title “eternal president.”
Kim Jong-Un, Sung-Yoon Lee went on to say, “would not dare to assume the title.”
You’ll probably forgive Mike for not knowing that, because after all, Pompeo is a guy who can’t even figure out the right answer when a Congressman asks him if he’s prejudiced against Muslims.
But then again, you really shouldn’t forgive him, because that’s the kind of nuance that you expect your top diplomats to understand when you send them into one of the most hostile environments on the planet to discuss nuclear weapons.
In any event, I guess we’re going to need more Elton John mixtapes.
Why not arrange another summit? Maybe Trump can have a nice sleep too for a change. No internet in North Korea no fucking tweets.
USA should also cancel all the tweeting high school-like nonsense! All it seems to do is bring out the beast in people – bully like behavior is out of control these days because there is no personal connection to being nasty and rude to anonymous people, no regard to what fire you are igniting in them and what damage they can do to anyone else. No responsibility.
Tweets and Facebook also tend to make it too easy for the scum to find each other and larger groups of scum grow into rallies that show up for trump and cheer because he says disgusting things about people like John McCain and President HW Bush and screams disrespectful lies about Maxine Waters and Elizabeth Warren (while also bragging about how he respects women!).
These adults stand around in finger punching silence and write the same crap they teach their children not to say to people.
It’s impossible to monitor tweets and facebook because those same irrational people bitch about their first amendment rights – while still remaining anonymous.
Shut down Twitter and Facebook for one year and witness the positive change in America. Then perhaps allow only posters to use real names, nothing allowed anonymously.
Remove FOX News from broadcasting!
Better start cleaning it up now — our culture is rapidly becoming a cesspool.