Trump’s nuclear gamble
US hopes President’s challenge to Iran will get Pyongyang’s attention
US president has eye on N. Korea as he takes a tough stance with Iran.
washington: As President Donald Trump prepares to decide on certifying the Iran nuclear deal, the White House has come to see a rapidly escalating standoff with North Korea as both a complicating factor and a cautionary tale.
By the close of business today, Trump is expected to declare that a landmark agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear programme is no longer in the US interest.
That would not kill the deal outright, but it would pass that decision on to Congress – a gambit full of risk for the greater Middle East.
During months of debate about regional repercussions from Aden to Kabul, indeed since the hours after Trump was elected, a gathering storm with North Korea has weighed heavily.
When Trump met then president Barack Obama for the first time on Nov 10, 2016, the outgoing leader had an ominous warning for the president-elect.
Sitting a few feet from each other in the storied Oval Office, Obama told Trump he would face a fateful decision on North Korea in the first months of his presidency.
Trump would have to decide whether to allow Kim Jong-un to develop the capability to nuke almost any city in the continental United States.
Presidents from George Bush Sr tried inducements and coercion to prevent North Korea from breaking through a series of ominous proliferation thresholds.
But year after year, North Korea marched ever closer to mastering what Winston Churchill once called the “lights of perverted science”.
The United States had three basic choices – military action, diplomacy or acceptance.
According to aides familiar with the conversation last November, Obama felt he had conveyed the gravity of the situation to the neophyte president.
Trump came away feeling like such a serious situation should have been dealt with long ago.
“Look, this should have been taken care of by four or five previous administrations,” Trump told Forbes recently. “I feel strongly you cannot allow him to have nuclear weapons.”
Under Trump’s tough-guy doctrine, an unbending message to Iran would make North Korea take notice. But several White House officials described the choice in more historical terms.
They have come to believe that tackling Iran today offers an opportunity akin to that which was squandered with North Korea a decade or more ago. — AFP
Look, this should have been taken care of by four or five previous administrations.
Donald Trump