two thoughts on the NK-SK and US-NK summits

(Friend and family ask what I think of news coming from the Korean peninsula so here's to you.)

There is every reason not to trust North Korea. But there is also every reason to give the two upcoming North-South Korea and NK-US summits every good effort, if only because the alternative is war.

I can think of two reasons for hope re these two summits:

(1) South Korean president Moon has the sense to not go to Pyongyang like his two ideologically-aligned predecessors did, and Kim Jong Un for his part is willing to walk a hundred-or-so meters into the Southern-controlled side of Panmunjom (the "truce village" mentioned in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire").

NK would milk the propaganda victory of another Southern president "paying tribute" (as they see it) with a visit to Pyongyang for all it's worth. SK president Kim Dae Jung secretly paid the North an actual tribute to the tune of $500 mil for his summit in Pyongyang and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Moon isn't playing game.

(2) Just like "only Nixon could go to China," a deal sealed by Trump would be a far easier sell in DC and to the GOP and Fox News commentariat than anything that could ever be done under a Dem administration.

Now to be sure, Trump doesn't have the attention span to know what the issues are. That he's been telling the world Kim Jong Un has agreed to denuclearize when in fact Kim has merely said he's open to talking about it speaks for itself. I can actually envision a situation where Trump is selling his deal and Democrats are forced to essentially accuse him of being weak on a dictator and sponsor of state terror. There's a reason every Korean ethnonationalist and pro-North-leaning person I know is suddenly, strangely happy with Trump. What's not to like about having Kim Jong Un negotiating with a total patsy, the least wonkish American head of state since King George?

But if Trump forms a deal that satisfies all concerns re denuclearization and non-proliferation, then it'll be unassailable by Trump supporters. None of the sometimes hate-motivated distaste of the “total disaster” [sic] of a deal with Iran just for having been Obama’s handiwork.