OpEd: Never negotiate with US without a Nuclear Bomb
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MOSCOW - While Donald Trump is signaling readiness to negotiate with North Korea, he does not seem willing to hold talks with Iran on its nuclear deal. Speaking to Sputnik, foreign affairs analyst Rakesh Krishnan opined that what lies behind the difference in the US attitude toward Tehran and Pyongyang is that the latter has nukes.
None of the Western mainstream media outlets are giving Donald Trump credit for getting North and South Korea to come together and shake hands, Rakesh Krishnan, a New Zealand-based journalist and foreign affairs analyst who writes on defense and warfare for international magazines, told Sputnik.
"Unlike past American presidents such as Barack Obama who were the Western MSM's darlings despite doing absolutely nothing for peace and in fact doing everything to create more wars, President Donald Trump has achieved a miracle," the journalist pointed out. "Being a hard-nosed businessman, he knows that talking any day is better than firing missiles. Each time Kim Jong-un fires an ICBM, the only thing that rises is the stock of weapons manufacturers."
Krishnan referred to a 1999 interview <link> in which the would-be president discussed the North Korea issue with American television journalist and lawyer Tim Russert. Trump noted that he would have launched a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear capability, but that he would have held talks first. Clarifying his point the then businessman added: "If they think you are serious, they'll negotiate and it will never come to that [a preemptive strike]."
"The amazing thing is his [Trump's] consistency. He's walking the talk," the journalist remarked.
He emphasized that the best outcome of the talks between Pyongyang and Seoul as well as the expected negotiations between Trump and Kim Jong-un would be if the North and South could become unified once again.
However, "that would take decades of development of the impoverished North and South Korea will have to pump in trillions to bring the North to the same OECD [the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] levels as the South," the analyst believes.
"Once this is accomplished there can be de-nuclearization as happened in South Africa in the 1990s," he added.
According to Krishnan, "Trump should initiate the process of reunification" which would certainly be "bad news for the arms lobbies <link> everywhere so they will try and derail the chances of reunification."
*Saddam, Gaddafi Were Ousted Because They Had No Nukes*
The journalist recalled General K. Sundarji, the former Indian Army chief, who once said: "Never negotiate with the United States without having nuclear weapons."
"The reason [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and [Libyan leader] Muammar Gaddafi got knocked out was because they had no nukes," Krishnan presumed. "General K. Sundarji had Saddam in mind when he said you should not negotiate with the US if you do not have nuclear weapons. The North Korean missiles are the only reason why the US has not flattened Pyongyang into the Stone Age. Kim knows this."
With Pyongyang's nuclear program continuing <link>, North Korea is currently the only country targeting the US with nukes for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the analyst highlighted.
"As a superpower that is a rather uncomfortable position to be in," Krishnan stressed. "So Trump wants to de-escalate the situation to lower the geopolitical temperature; improve global economic confidence; remove a thorn that hurts US pride; raise his own stock as a leader."
