re: #89 lawhawk

Meanwhile, ABC News is claiming that Trump’s going to move to end the Korean War.

That could be good, except we have no idea what Trump’s talking about, what concessions are about to be made, and who gets thrown under the bus.

Because there’s no evidence that North Korea is making any concessions at all. And they wouldn’t give up their nukes, so the devil is in the so-called details.

My guess is that Trump’s floating this and when it comes up short, they’ll bulkshit and deflect attention - all while trying to reset expectations (which were already low).

I have an idea what Trump is talking about: he will probably be pushing for a formalized end to the hostilities (technically, I believe, the Korean War has never actually “ended”, there has just been a mutually-observed ceasefire for 65 years or so).
Some sort of fancy formal “treaty” or whatever that will change absolutely nothing in terms of power politics in the reason. Unless a diplomatic agreement between North and South Korea is part of the deal. That MAY be important.

But I’m sure the main point will be to give Donald Trump something to bring home and wave around and indulge in overblown braggadocio about how “he and he alone was able to end the war!!” -unlike the previous eleven Presidents - and bask in the adulation of the RW media who will likely:

1. Hysterically praise Donald Trump as the Greatest Nobel-worthy Peacemaker Of All Time EVER!!!11!!!, and
2. (Way more importantly) Vigorously damn anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly endorse point 1 - by, say, pointing out that any agreement that doesn’t substantively retard North Korean nuclear development is pretty meaningless - as deranged obstructionist partisan hacks unworthy of Trump’s Great America.

Getting a formal “treaty” signed to end the Korean War - in and of itself - seems to me to be nice, if fairly trivial achievement: but then again, in the Trump Administration, trivial victories are better than none.

PS: I had thought that one of the stumbling blocks in forming a formal end to the War was that the governments of both North and South Korea claim to be the only legitimate government of the whole Korean Peninsula: I wonder how they will get around this?