Tag: North Korea
Tillerson should undo his undoer
President Trump in two tweets this morning yanked the rug out from under Secretary of State Tillerson’s efforts to negotiate with the North Koreans:
Anyone who doubts the power of social media should consider this example. Never before has a Secretary of State been undone so quickly and with fewer words.
Some will say Tillerson was trying to do the right thing and should stay, to act as a bulwark with Secretary of Defense Mattis and National Security Adviser McMaster against the worst instincts of the president.
But the bulwark just collapsed. No foreign leader would now have any confidence in what Tillerson says. Kim Jung-un already had good reasons for skepticism, since the President, claiming to be “locked and loaded,” had threatened “fire and fury.” Now Kim has confirmation from Trump himself that talks would be useless and that North Korea should move as quickly as possible to gain the nuclear capability that will prevent an American attack. Pyongyang’s options for survival have been reduced to threatening nuclear war.
The only real reason for Tillerson to stay at this point is to join an effort by the Vice President to trigger Amendment 25 (section 4) of the constitution:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
The President gets to appeal, but the process is time-limited and does not require impeachment in the House or a trial in the Senate:
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
There is, to my knowledge, no such vice-presidential effort to trigger the “inability” clause of the constitution, which would be risky at best and suicidal at worst. But if the Republicans continue to back a harebrained president, we will soon find ourselves in a war with North Korea that could escalate to a nuclear exchange. We’ll “win,” but only with horrendous consequences for South Korea, Japan, and US troops in the Asia Pacific.
The time to stop this president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” is now. Some will argue that Pence could be worse, as he is far more conservative in the conventional sense than Trump. But Pence has respect for American institutions and values that Trump lacks. He would do things I wouldn’t like, including undermining Obamacare and pursuing a “fatten the rich” tax cut. But he would be far more judicious about North Korea, Iran, and America’s other big challenges. Tillerson can still prove his worth by undoing his undoer.
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A new low, but not the bottom
President Trump hit it this morning, when he tweeted from his golf weekend in New Jersey that the mayor of San Juan was only complaining about the slow Federal reaction to Hurricane Maria because Democrats had told her to do so. What’s more, he added, the people of Puerto Rico are expecting everything to be done for them rather than pitching in to help. Lest you think I exaggerate, here are the tweets in question:
The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.
…Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They….
…want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job.
Here’s that mayor reacting to the Acting Homeland Security Secretary claiming Puerto Rico is a good news story:
Words fail me: how can someone as crass and callous as Trump even pretend to be President of the United States?
The answer is that Americans voted for him. Fewer than voted for Hillary Clinton, but enough (by 70,000 votes in three states) to get him elected.
What is the cure? There is only one: the Republicans in Congress, who so far have proven unwilling even to begin to challenge Trump in a serious way. Despite harsh criticism from the White House, Senate Majority leader McConnell and Speak Ryan have lined up to salute repeatedly.
The only hope at this point is that a few Republicans outside the leadership will refuse to go along. That is what happened on the health care votes. There is still a possibility that a few of them will join with Democrats in fixing what ails Obamacare, rather than throwing it out with the bathwater. The odds may improve without Tom Price as Health and Human Services Secretary: he was a pernicious influence, aside from being a spendthrift with the public’s money.
On taxes, the Administration is proposing a massive cut for the very wealthy like himself and nothing for the poor, plus barely a smidgen for the middle class. That won’t pass, but it creates an uphill fight for those who would like to do something much more sensible. The process will be slow. Nothing is likely to pass this year, which pretty much guarantees that we will head into next spring with a president who has accomplished nothing beyond a single Supreme Court nominee, who admittedly will do a great deal of damage for decades to come.
This disastrous performance on the domestic front has implications for foreign policy. A president who can’t get a Congress with his own party in the majority in both houses to pass any significant legislation is one foreigners don’t feel much need to respect.The Canadians and Mexicans are busy with diplomatic offenses targeting the states, which are likely to resist the worst of Trump’s trade proposals. The Europeans are biding their time until he is gone, when they hope to take up the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership again.
Nor has Trump given either friend or foe any reason to go along with his harebrained schemes: withdrawing from a nuclear deal with Iran that is clearly in the US interest, threatening North Korea with “fire and fury” while trying to convince them everything will be just fine if they give up nuclear weapons, sending more troops to Afghanistan without any clear objective, doubling down on the drone wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere despite decades of evidence that won’t work. Even Vladimir Putin, who did so much to get Trump elected, is finding him a disappointment.
I can’t remember a time when we have been so ill-served by such obviously corrupt and ill-meaning people. But I suppose this new low is still nowhere near the bottom.
PS: This morning’s tweets about Rex Tillerson’s efforts to negotiate with Pyongyang illustrate how Trump can go lower: “I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!” Tillerson should resign.
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Loser loses
President Trump’s big domestic loss is glaring: Obamacare remains in place and is likely to survive in some form, because the Republicans now need 60 votes in the Senate in order to repeal and replace it. They are going to lose the big tax cuts they proposed yesterday too: no self-respecting Democrat would join such a blatant effort to cut taxes for the well-off, with hardly anything going to the middle class and nothing to the poor while ballooning the deficit. I won’t mention that Trump’s favored candidate lost a primary in Alabama.
The losing doesn’t stop there. The botched response to the hurricane devastation in Puerto Rico looks likely to rival what happened in 2005 in New Orleans. Even the President’s effort to label those who kneel or lock arms during the national anthem played at sport events seems to have backfired, except among his hard-core supporters. Their enthusiasm for the flag they often abuse as clothing is exceeded only by their pleasure in dissing the black players who lead the protests.
But the most important losing is coming in Syria and North Korea, without much in the headlines.
In Syria, Hizbollah and other Shia militias are gaining ground in the east, with ample Russian support. They are also well-embedded in the south, along the border with Israel. The Iranian-backed Shia militia presence inside Syria in strategically important areas is likely the worst long-term outcome of the Syrian debacle for the United States. As Josh Rogin reported yesterday, the Administration seems to have no plan to respond effectively, despite the President’s bombast about Iran.
With North Korea, the Administration’s efforts to squeeze Kim Jung-un hard enough to make him contemplate restraints on his nuclear and missile programs shows no sign of working. Tightened sanctions, US air force flights closer to his borders, and deployment of missile defenses in South Korea and Japan just do not outweigh the advantage Pyongyang will gain from having a credible nuclear threat against US allies and bases in the Asia Pacific and eventually also against Alaska, Hawaii and the lower 48.
The President’s personal insults hurled at Kim have been returned in kind and arguably with better rhetorical flourish (“dotard” beats “Rocket Man” in my estimation). Such tit-for-tat exchanges between leaders make it far less likely that either can back down from the confrontation without serious domestic political implications. Trump will nevertheless likely have to back off his threats of military action, since escalation that would incinerate Seoul with conventional weapons could ensue. Or maybe he won’t back off, in which case the world is in even bigger trouble.
America has elected a loser who has failed to deliver anything beyond a single Supreme Court appointment, plus a lot of vituperation. #MAGA
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Trump is about to make a big mess
I find it hard to believe, but it looks as if President Trump is preparing to take the advice of John Bolton to decertify Iranian compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the JCPOA or “Iranian nuclear deal”). This despite the complete lack of factual support for the notion that Iran is substantially violating the deal as well as European refusal to join the US in the reimposition of sanctions required even to begin compelling Tehran to renegotiate.
The consequences will be far-reaching. If Iran opts to remain in compliance, the Europeans will maintain their sanctions relief, at least until the US imposes so-called secondary sanctions against their banks and companies for continuing to do business with Iran. That will cause enormous resentment in Europe, where doubts about President Trump are already rife. Hard to see how our traditional allies will continue to support us on many issues if the Administration makes the mistake of undermining the JCPOA.
In the less likely event that Tehran decides to renege on the deal, the Europeans may back reimposition of sanctions, but Iran would soon (a year?) have nuclear weapons. That might precipitate an Israeli or an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, with no prospect however of delaying Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons by more than the eight years or more left on the JCPOA clock. It will be necessary to periodically attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, with devastating consequences for Middle East (and global) stability, as Tehran will strike back in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and possibly even the US.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un will be confirmed in his view that only nuclear weapons and the capacity to strike the US will protect his regime from an American attack. Prospects for a negotiated freeze or other limitations on Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities would go to zero fast, if they are not already there.
Trump likes to overplay his hand, then distract attention so that he can cave. That won’t work well with Iran and North Korea, both of which understand perfectly well how lousy America’s alternatives to a negotiated agreement on their nuclear programs are. Both regimes, once upon a time two-thirds of the “axis of evil,” have understood the other third’s mistake: Saddam Hussein didn’t pursue nuclear weapons aggressively enough to forestall an American invasion.
Not that America today has the stomach for an invasion of either North Korea or Iran, even if they lack nuclear weapons. We are well into two decades of constant but far from completely successful warfare in many countries aimed at wiping out Islamist extremists. Are we really ready to take on two more adversaries, one or both of which might be nuclear-equipped by the time we do?
The alternative is not appetizing either. Basically, we need to content ourselves with deterring both North Korea and Iran from using their nuclear weapons, without pressing for regime change. Their own people will have to find a way to deal with their leaders, which is how things should be. Trump even said so in his UN General Assembly speech, which lauded sovereignty. That in my view comes from the people.
We can and should, however, push back against Iran’s and North Korea’s regional misbehavior, especially insofar as they seek to intimidate or undermine US allies. It is odd indeed that Trump has done nothing to counter Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria, where Hizbollah and Shia militias are reshaping the political landscape. Japan and South Korea could also use less bombast and more real support.
But Trump is president, as he so often reminds us. He seems disinclined to maintain the traditionally effective multilateral approaches to Pyongyang and Tehran and more likely to make a big mess.
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Bluster/distract/cave won’t work
Donald Trump’s much-vaunted negotiating skills have produced virtually nothing in the past eight months of his singularly unproductive presidency. What do we know about his approach to negotiating? How is it working?
Trump’s first stage is bluster: locked and loaded, fire and fury. He threatens the worst possible outcome for his opponent, ignoring the implications for himself and his country. He has done this not only with North Korea, but also with the repeal of Obamacare (watch out! it’s collapsing!) and the budget ceiling (I’ll close down the government unless I get my wall!). Not to mention the nuclear deal with Iran (the worst deal ever!). This bluster attracts a lot of media attention, but it ignores what is crucial in negotiation: your own alternative to a negotiated agreement.
Then Trump quickly tacks in a different direction, before it is apparent that bluster isn’t working. Anything else will do, so long as it distracts from the main item he has put on the agenda. A hurricane will serve the purpose, as will a campaign trip to North Dakota or some other domestic political distraction like the competence of Speaker Ryan or Senate majority leader McConnell. The more bizarre the distraction, the better, since its purpose is to make the original issue evaporate, a bit like the magician’s use of distraction to make a rabbit disappear.
Then Trump caves on the original issue. He did this yesterday at the UN Security Council, accepting a resolution that falls far short of his announced goal of ending trade with North Korea, but only after taking advantage of the distraction caused by Hurricane Irma.
He is getting ready to do something similar with the Iran nuclear deal: he may claim that Iran is not complying (bluster) and throw the issue to the Congress (distraction), but he won’t withdraw from the deal (that’s the caving) because he knows by now it is better than no deal (that’s what the Israelis and Saudis are telling him). Instead, he’ll do something I think is quite sensible: focus on Iranian (mis)behavior in the Middle East, which is a real and growing problem.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) got this treatment. Trump feinted about withdrawal, then allowed months of distractions and ended up with a renegotiation the Canadians and Mexicans were happy to engage in, because they’ve got complaints about the current decades-old agreement as well. He did not do this with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), from which he simply withdrew. But that story may not be over yet. I suspect the US will eventually find its way back in, if the countries of the region want to continue the process.
There are of course things Trump just doesn’t like, so the bluster is real. The climate change treaty is one of those, though the recent storms seem to be making some Republicans think maybe we need to do something to reduce their likelihood, even if they don’t agree on human causation. I won’t be surprised if Trump, who once supported action on climate change as a businessman, changes his mind as well.
How is bluster/distract/cave working? Well enough domestically for Trump to retain his core support. But internationally it is a disaster. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you, is the general rule in international affairs. Watch the Russians, who are reacting vigorously against a president they once thought they owned. The Chinese aren’t likely to be friendly about it either. Trump is going to find himself where he did in the real estate business: a creditor only third tier institutions and individuals will do business with. It is no accident that he gets praise from people whose governance is notoriously corrupt.
Bluster/distract/cave won’t work on serious people, who learn quickly that all they really need to do is wait Trump out, so long as they have a decent alternative to a negotiated agreement.
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Kim is winning because Trump
Permanent Representative Haley is pushing hard this week for a new UN Security Council resolution on North Korea, one that brings maximum economic pressure to bear, even as President Trump continues to mumble about military options rather than negotiations. Kim Jong-un appears to be paying neither any mind. Why not?
The short answer is BATNA: best alternative to a negotiated agreement. His is better than ours:
- He can ignore our military bluster because he now has both a conventional deterrent–a massive artillery attack on Seoul–and a nuclear one. There can be no more doubting Pyongyang’s capability of hitting at least US allies (and the US forces stationed in them) with a nuclear weapon.
- He can ignore the sanctions threat at least until he sees what emerges from the UNSC and whether China is inclined to comply with it fully. Barring North Korea’s trade without China is meaningless.
Our options are limited: we can threaten military action and tightened sanctions, but we can’t really do either unilaterally. Military action should at least require concurrence from South Korea, which is most exposed to the North’s artillery and understandably loathe to go in the military direction. Trade and financial sanctions require China’s cooperation. Threatening not to do business with any country or company that does business with North Korea may sound great, but our reliance on trade with China and Chinese companies precludes actually doing it.
Haley’s most striking rhetoric was her claim that Kim Jong-un is “begging for war.” That is simply untrue. He is deterring the US from a military strike, so far successfully, by demonstrating the North’s own military capabilities. It is far truer that President Trump in his tweets is begging for war, but the adults in the National Security Council and the Defense Department are likely showing him military options and consequences that are unappetizing at best, catastrophic at worst.
President Trump is not entirely to blame for this situation. The history of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs is strewn with poor choices, both by American presidents and Pyongyang. The Americans have wanted to kick the can down the road. The North Koreans have preferred isolation to integration with the rest of the world. Neither the Americans nor the North Koreans have been willing to make decisions based on the real, but in the 1990s and 2000s long-term, threat of nuclear holocaust.
We are now approaching that long-term future. Haley has ruled out a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, in exchange for a freeze on what the North quite reasonably views as hostile US and South Korean military preparations for a pre-emptive strike. The smart money is betting that is the best we are going to get, but Trump’s bluster precludes it. That said, he often backs down, after an effort at distraction. Bluster, distract, cave is his preferred style of (very poor) negotiation. He’d have done a lot better with an upfront assessment of his BATNA, which is what every first-year conflict management student learns at SAIS.
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