Negotiating With Mad Men: The Risks of Placating Kim
John Bolton continues to prove his trustworthiness as a spokesman for Americans (“FDR’s Warning,” Post Opinion, Sept. 6).
I was gratified to see Bolton mention that the threat from North Korea is nothing new. Tragically, many people believe the North Korean crisis began on President Trump’s watch.
In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton bragged about the peace deal he struck with North Korea, saying it would prevent Pyongyang from going nuclear. Obviously, he was fooled.
It’s been a quarter of a century since, and the realists are right — the time for negotiation and diplomacy has ended. Helen Freedman Manhattan
One year ago, US intelligence agencies told us North Korea was still testing atomic weapons and was working on an ICBM.
Now, it’s testing hydrogen bombs and has a working ICBM. In just one year?
What was the Obama administration doing to prevent this?
President Barack Obama left America weaker and our enemies stronger. Vincent L. Tripp Fort Lee, NJ
Bill Clinton played Neville Chamberlain in 1994, giving North Korea $5 billion in assets, including two reactors, hoping to curb its push to nuclear weaponization.
In 2015, Barack Obama did something similar, leading the way to legitimize and fund Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Today’s crisis on the Korean peninsula is the preview for the real battle to come. North Korea is a regional threat. Iran has grander designs.
If the West blinks and North Korea is allowed to keep its nuclear arsenal, Iran will be unstoppable. A nuclear North Korea will guarantee a nuclear Iran.
The West will have to capitulate or fight. Europe has already thrown in the towel. The fate of the free world rests with America. Len Bennett Deerfield Beach, Fla.
We finally figured out Obama’s legacy: nuclear missiles in North Korea pointed at California.
This is the consequence of leading from behind. Matthew Galcik Montauk
Bolton has demonstrated why he should be a key consultant in the Trump administration.
North Korea’s test of a hydrogen bomb shows that Kim Jong-un poses a threat not only to his neighbors South Korea and Japan but to the United States.
China can no longer control the actions of North Korea. Trump should realize that verbal threats are ineffective, and sanctions against China will no longer prove to be useful in curbing Kim. Nelson Marans Manhattan
China has wanted America out of Korea since 1950.
So let’s make China an offer it can’t refuse: Let China overthrow the Kim regime. In exchange, America will withdraw its military, and both sides will agree to reunification of Korea under South Korean auspices.
Korea would remain neutral in any disputes China may have with other Western Pacific powers, such as Japan and Taiwan.
Such a deal has precedent. Ten years after World War II, America and the USSR agreed to mutual withdrawal from divided Austria, which was reunited and thereafter neutral in the Cold War. James Nollet Milkowice, Poland
Kim may forget that America has thousands of nuclear weapons, enough to reduce North Korea to a fairly unpleasant landscape.
But the true test of courage is to stand up to North Korea in a non-violent way.
It’s time for the rest of the world to turn their backs on Kim by denying North Korea trade and resources. Dennis Fitzgerald Melbourne, Australia