re: #78 lawhawk

A meeting that might never occur because smarter and saner minds prevail.

Trump wants a meeting at any cost because enough right wing loons floated idea of a Nobel prize after threatening nuclear war and dropping bombs on North Korea if they didn’t comply.

Of course, now it’s North Korea that’s giving the marching orders and everyone’s trying to salvage the situation from Trump because he gave away the leverage the US had, and once again everyone’s trying to play to Trump’s ego and vanity.

The really dangerous thing is that Kelly had to talk Trump out of removing US troops from South Korea before Moon and Kim met, before there was any hint of a meeting.

White House chief of staff and retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly talked President Trump out of ordering the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula earlier this year, according to a report Monday by NBC News.

According to two officials cited in the NBC report, Kelly and Trump had a “heated exchange” before February’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, and Kelly strongly persuaded Trump to not order the withdrawal, which would have had historic implications on decades-old regional alliances and North Korean deterrence efforts.

Multiple officials said Kelly’s success in talking Trump out of undoing decades of U.S. foreign policy was another example of Kelly’s common refrain that, “I’m the one saving the country,” NBC reports.

“The strong implication being ‘if I weren’t here we would’ve entered WWIII or the president would have been impeached,’” one former senior White House official was quoted as saying in the report.

So Kim knows that Trump desperately wants to abandon SK and free those troops up for a potential war with Iran which Trump needs to A.) boost oil prices and reward his foreign masters, and B.) appear tough & quell domestic dissent with a fresh round of war propaganda. This means Kim and Trump want the same thing, and it isn’t denuclearization. Kim just needs to find the right fig leaf that will allow Trump to sell the betrayal of a key ally.