The Singapore Summit is June 12 and according to Trump consigliere Rudy Giuliani, Kim Jong Un is assuming the supine position in the intercourse of international diplomacy and that’s “exactly the position you want to put him in.” Wall Street Journal:
“They also said they were going to go to nuclear war with us, they were going to defeat us in a nuclear war,” Mr. Giuliani said. “We said we’re not going to have a summit under those circumstances.”
After Mr. Trump canceled the meeting, Mr. Giuliani said: “Well, Kim Jong Un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in.”
That’s a far cry from the olive branch proffered by foreign ministry official Kim Kye Gwan in the wake of Trump’s teenage break up letter to Kim, “We express our willingness to sit down face-to-face with the U.S. and resolve issues anytime and in any format.”
Giuliani made these remarks at an investment conference in Israel sponsored by the Globes newspaper, where he stated that the reason Trump canceled the summit in the first place was because North Korea insulted top Trump officials. This was undoubtedly a reference to John Bolton being called “repugnant” and Mike Pence, being called a “political dummy,” which in point of fact are commonly held views worldwide and not new ones, either.
Mr. Giuliani also said that North Korea does want to denuclearize, “but they do want probably much too long a timetable for that.”
Mr. Giuliani told the Israeli audience that a similar approach should be taken with the Palestinians in the decades-old conflict with Israel.
“That’s what needs to happen with the Palestinian Authority. They have to be seeking peace. You’ve got to change the dynamic and put the pressure on them,” he said.
Well, this is just swell. Sarah Huckabee Sanders assured us that “maximum pressure” would be placed on North Korea, and as a follow up to that, Giuliani is now advocating increasing pressure on the Palestinians, who have refused to even sit down at the negotiating table since December, when Trump breezily announced that Jerusalem was the new capital of Israel, dangerously veering from decades of foreign policy.
The incredible irony in all this is that somehow Trump intends to slap all our allies around and then be awarded with a Nobel peace price. If Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton are advising Trump in foreign policy, God help us. The Singapore Summit is not going to end well and we can only hope that means that we’re not all glowing in the dark.
