Trump finally did something constructive – met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – and the chorus of protest is deafening. I’m not a deep-state conspiracy theorist, but that broad consensus around our imperial foreign policy does not look favorably upon this development. Readers of this blog may recall that I have occasionally wondered aloud (or in html text) whether there are deeper motivations behind this 70-year-old war that never ends. The U.S. relationship with South Korea is one part alliance and perhaps two parts lord/serf. That second component became more evident when Trump announced that there would be no more “war games” – just the use of that term alone exploded heads throughout the talk-show tele-verse.
As Bruce Cumings and others have pointed out for many years, the South Korean military is essentially under the command of U.S. generals. That is, in the event of a war, South Korean commanders would take orders directly from our military. Add to that the fact that the U.S., South Korea, and North Korea have technically been in a state of war since 1950, and you have a sense of how this works. Think about it – what does it say about South Korea’s sovereignty that they are not in control of their military? Recall, too, that the country was under the rule of generals and assorted dictators into the 1980s, all backed by the U.S. So when a president threatens the sanctity of “military exercises”, essentially admitting that they are, in fact, war games and, as such, “provocative,” as Trump accurately described them, national security reporters and consultants on every network start spinning like crazy.
In all honesty, Trump is a disaster in practically every respect. But his ideology is simply himself. Absent imperial designs, the Korea problem has always been a relatively easy one to solve, given the right conditions – namely, sane leadership in South Korea like Moon Jae-in. The North has always, always wanted direct talks with the United States. Their nuclear weapons program was obviously an attempt to build a credible deterrent to a preeminent military power that literally laid waste to their country in the 1950s. All Trump had to do was say yes. Would Obama have done the same thing, given the same conditions? Hard to say. Trump’s one advantage is that he’s not hide-bound by training and knowledge. In other words, it sometimes takes a dunderhead to see the obvious.
Lest this sound like a praise fest, trust me, I have no illusions about this president. With Bolton and Pompeo at his side, he’s probably doing this to free us up for a war with Iran. We’re already helping Saudi and the UAE pound the living shit out of Yemen. So, eyes open, this is one good thing in a sea of troubles, and we should encourage our compatriots to see both the benefits and the risks. In other words, tell Democrats, liberal talking heads, etc., not to take the other side just because it’s Trump. War in Korea would be an unmitigated disaster – anything that ends that threat is a good thing.
luv u,
jp
The Sharpie ink was barely dry on Trump’s memorandum to leave the JCPOA before Israel began threatening more action against Iran and Syria. Just the previous week, an official had threatened a decapitation raid on Syria if Assad would not stop hosting Iranians. Now they are firing missiles at “Iranian” targets in Syria supposedly to protect Israelis in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. The Trump administration, of course, is reflexively supporting Israel in this, but it’s obvious what’s happening here. Netanyahu and his allies are turning up the heat on Iran in order to provoke a larger than usual response; this in the hopes of triggering a sizable American military attack on Iranian forces in Syria or on Iran itself.
Restraining a Trump administration powered by John Bolton and Mike Pompeo is going to be difficult. It isn’t made any easier by internal divisions evident on the left. Clearly we don’t need to agree on everything to agree that American intervention in Syria is a bad idea and shouldn’t be done. There’s a natural tendency to turn conflicts of this type into a kind of zero-sum game between bad players and good players; this is not unique to the left, obviously. There are people on the left who support the rebellion in Syria and those who think it’s populated entirely by terrorists. Likewise, I’ve heard leftists essentially align themselves with the Assad regime and others call for its overthrow.