I'm hopeful on North Korea. I'm glad that
Fox News and other conservatives have completely changed their opinion on discussions with adversaries (remember how horrible it was when Obama did it?). I'm hopeful we can work something out, but...
I'm not optimistic that either the US or North Korea are reliable on this deal. North Korea has promised to get rid of nukes plenty of times before, only to go back on that promise. And, to be fair, I have to admit that the US has given North Korea plenty of excuses to go back on the deals:
1953 - US agrees to armistice and not to introduce new weapons onto the Korean Peninsula
1958 - US introduces nuclear rockets, artillery, and later nuclear cruise missiles against armistice agreement and wishes of allies
1963 - NK asks, but China and the USSR refuse to give North Korea nukes (provided a research reactor)
1985 - N.K. signs non-proliferation treaty
1991 - US pulls nukes out of South Korea (as part of Cold War warp up)
1993 - accused of breaking the treaty, NK pulls out of the treaty
1994 - "agreed framework": NK stops nuclear program, inspectors ensure compliance, the US provides 2 nuclear power plants, work towards normalizing relations
1995 - Congress blocks implementing the deal, the US doesn't live up to its end of the deal
2002 - NK expels nuclear inspectors and pulls out of the 1994 agreement
2006 - North Korea successfully tests a nuclear weapon
2017 - North Korea tests long range missile that can reach parts of the US
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/north-korea-and-americas-long-history-of-broken-promises-to-find-peace-20171122-gzqnx8.htmlNorth Korea is a dictatorship that kidnaps and executes people and makes up its own history while threatening a repeat of the war it started with South Korea. I'm not saying the US is responsible for any of that. But it is important to know how we got to this point. While it is a footnote for us, this has been the focus of the North for two generations. They are well aware of the timeline above and view it as the reason they don't trust the US.
Of course everything is more complicated than that, but from their perspective, it's not - and we have to deal with the reality that a dictator's perspective has created.
