The latest word out of Pyongyang, directly from the mouth of that enigmatic leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, is that he will obliterate New York with his new "Hydrogen" bomb. According to him, his bomb is even more powerful than the "H" bombs that we had! The response from the West, more specifically from the United States is that our "experts" are questioning the power of Kim Jong Un's alleged "H" bomb. The experts are convinced that it is not as powerful as an "H" bomb, that it is just a powerful "A" bomb. I fail to see the point in even discussing the issue of the power of the bomb! It is obviously powerful enough to do a lot of damage, much more than damage caused by the bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Isn't that powerful and terrible enough? Who cares if it is an "H" or just a large "A" bomb, the fact remains that it is a nuclear bomb and it is very powerful! Yet we try to demean and deemphasize the danger of having to face North Korea and its unpredictable and unstable leadership with such a weapon!
We failed miserably in trying to negotiate with North Korea on the nuclear issue. We just don't seem to know how to deal with them! I've mentioned repeatedly in previous blogs on how we fail to "read" the North Koreans properly. We do have people who not only understand but can get into the heads of North Koreans, but our government always seems to bypass such people and use negotiators who are favorites of the administration, but lack the expertise! That is how the negotiations with North Korea failed during Clinton's administration. The people chosen to do the negotiations were Clinton's hand picked individuals. They may have been experienced Foreign Affairs experts and had experience dealing in Europe or other places, but they were complete novices when it came to North Korea. There was not a single Korea or Asia expert on that negotiating team! Of course South Korea had their people. But North Korea insisted, as they always do, that they will only deal directly with us, the United States. So, South Korea's expertise was not very helpful in that case. Besides, apparently Clinton's negotiators were somewhat arrogant and ignored South Korea's advice!
Now, most recently, in another nuclear negotiations which was declared "successful," we struck a deal with Iran despite opposition from many in our own government. Who were our negotiators? It was mainly John Kerry, our Secretary of State. Kerry, despite administration's insistence that he is a polished and expert negotiator, is not what Obama's people say he is! It seems he is not capable of striking good "deals" for the U.S., despite claims to the contrary! Since the agreement was made Iran has already broken the agreement with multiple violations. The most recent missile testing is just an exclamation mark to the message that Iran is sending, which is that they will do what they want to do regardless of any agreement. The message which they wrote in bold Arabic on one of the missiles, "Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth!" was not only an insult to Israel but to the U.S. as well, since we are Israel's biggest supporters! Iran doesn't care, they got what they wanted, all that money with which to buy missiles and other weapons and develop their nuclear program. The idea that this agreement is somehow going to retard Iran's nuclear development or, as advertised, bring peace to the world, is laughable!
So now Kerry and Company are working on a peace settlement in Syria. You know, there may really be some sort of a stoppage of the fighting. It is not because of Kerry's ability and skill to strike a deal, it is more because Russia does not want to continue to be involved in this expensive adventure. Iran (and Hezbollah) also does not wish to prolong their involvement. They would much rather spend the newly acquired funds (from the Nuclear Deal!) to beef up their own war making ability rather than spending it in Syria. So it is possible that some sort of an accord could be struck. But it will not be to our advantage, that is for sure. Both Russia and Iran have got a firm foothold in that region, so stopping the fighting isn't going to change that. Besides, supposedly the peace settlement will affect only the Assad regime and the anti Assad rebels. What about ISIS? More than likely ISIS will use the "quiet" time, if there is a lull in fighting, to regroup and start anew. ISIS doesn't care about a peace treaty, they just want to take over the whole Middle East!
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