Trump Threatens North Korea With "Fire and Fury Like the World Has Never Seen" - By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz -
"The earth is breaking, breaking; The earth is crumbling, crumbling. The earth is tottering, tottering." Isaiah 24:19 (The Israel Bible�)
The exchanges between North Korea and the US are taking on even more ominous tones as President Donald Trump takes a strong stand against a despotic regime that is responding with threats containing explicit nuclear threats.
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States," President Trump said in a press conference at his New Jersey resort of Bedminster on Tuesday. "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Clearly unintimidated, the North's Korean People's Army (KPA) released a statement on Wednesday in state-run KCNA news threatening to attack Guam, a US island territory 2,100 miles distant from North Korea. The threat went even further to include mainland America.
"The US should [remember], however, that once there observed a sign of action for 'preventive war' from the US, the army of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will turn the US mainland into the theater of a nuclear war before the inviolable land of the DPRK turns into the one," the statement said.
"It is a daydream for the US to think that its mainland is an invulnerable Heavenly kingdom. The U.S. should clearly face up to the fact that the ballistic rockets of the Strategic Force of the KPA. are now on constant standby, facing the Pacific Ocean and pay deep attention to their azimuth angle for launch."
Though the North Korean statement seemed to follow President Trump's strong warning, it was actually released the day before. The North Korean statement was a response to an incident on Monday in which two B-1B bombers from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam flew over the Korean peninsula. The bombers were joined by Japanese and South Korean aircraft.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reassured concerned Americans that the president's incendiary statement was intentionally framed in extreme language the North Koreans would be sure to understand.
"In response to that, North Korea's rhetoric is just ratcheted up, louder and louder and more threatening," Tillerson told reporters on Wednesday. "What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un would understand because he doesn't seem to understand diplomatic language."
"I think Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days," he added.
Guam's governor, Eddie Calvo, reacted to the threat in a statement he made on Facebook on Wednesday, reassuring the civilian residents of the island.
"I have reached out to the White House this morning," he wrote. "An attack or threat to Guam is a threat or attack on the United States. They have said that America will be defended."
This bombastic give-and-take is an ongoing cycle that has been characteristic of the growing tensions between the two countries. After the US Treasury Department recently enacted economic sanctions on North Korea in response to two illegal intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) tests last month, the UN Security Council followed suit with additional sanctions against the rogue nation.
In conjunction with their missile program, North Korea exploded two nuclear devices last year, raising concerns that the improvements in their nuclear weapons program matched with their new ICBMs pose a serious threat to other countries.
Japan confirmed this fear when they released a statement on Tuesday warning that they believe North Korea is now capable of miniaturizing its nuclear weapons and mounting them on ICBMs. Guam is acknowledged to be within range of North Korean middle and long range ICBMs.
Trump's 'fire and fury' rhetoric baffles and outrages foreign policy establishment and its toadies - By Thomas Lifson - http://www.americanthinker.com
The Smart Set agrees that once again, President Trump has said something ridiculous, amateurish, and downright embarrassing. His warning to North Korea, using rhetoric that resembles the hyperbole that regime long has favored, is something they would never do (and just look at how successful they have been preventing North Korea from getting nukes).
But watch as the president makes his point twice, very deliberately, using the exact words "fire and fury" that he had committed to memory:
WATCH: https://youtu.be/RML0vnET2PI
Left-wingers bandied about works like "insane," and NeverTrumps of the right muttered, "Trump is trying to out-crazy Kim Jong-un." The foreign policy establishment was equally critical, if more measured.
Axios eagerly sought out one of the deans of the foreign policy establishment, Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass, interrupting his "golfing, riding and hiking in Wyoming" in order to sneer at the sort of rhetoric that Just Isn't Done by People Who Are Experts (because they have been doing such a great job, presumably).
Here's his Axios smart-brevity take on the developments:
- "Potus's words (fire and fury) [were] counterproductive as it will raise doubts around the world and at home about his handling of the situation when all the attention and criticism ought to be placed on NK."
- "North Korea is engaging in bluster in the wake of its diplomatic isolation at the UN. The bluster could be meant for domestic consumption and to persuade China or Russia to reconsider their distancing from NK."
- "But Kim Jong-un is playing a dangerous game, as his words will add fuel to the argument here and elsewhere that he cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons and that deterrence cannot be assumed to work here."
- "I assume Potus's words were meant to signal NK and others that NK's bluster would not succeed in getting the US to back off its effort to isolate NK and pressure it to change course on its missile program."
- "[T]his may all be seen in hindsight as posturing. Diplomacy could still bring about a freeze on NK's capabilities or some other outcome that both sides can live with."
Just for a moment, and just for fun, let's see if there might be any logic to trying a different approach from the one that has consistently failed for decades under the knowledgeable stewardship of the foreign policy establishment.
A couple of possibilities occur to me.
Psyching out the psycho: speaking directly to Kim Jong-un
In choosing words that reflect North Korea's past rhetoric, President Trump may be speaking directly to Kim Jong-un and saying, in effect: "We know that you don't have the capacity to pull off an attack that would utterly destroy us in a 'sea of fire' and the other terms you have used. And you know that we do have the power to destroy you, maybe with a cruise missile or MOAB on your bunker, or maybe take out all of Pyongyang, where the regime's insiders all are clustered. Or we could take out the entire country, if we are really annoyed, or if you inflict damage on Guam, Seoul, or any place we care about (everywhere but your territory). We have power [Trump added this, seemingly extemporaneously], and you do not."
North Korea's people, as well as its leadership, now understand - as they never did before - that their country is truly backward. Until cell phones and video players were parachuted into the country in vast numbers and software supplied of everything from soap operas to documentaries to pictures of traffic jams, the regime could get by telling its subjects they were the lucky ones, that everyone else had it much worse. Now they all know that it is a lie. The information age and economical South Korean-manufactured consumer electronics have destroyed the information wall around Kim's domain.
Kim Jong-un, who was educated in Switzerland, personally understands the gap between his country's capabilities and those of the West, and President Trump knows he knows this. Remember that President Trump is far more accustomed to bare-knuckle negotiations than foreign policy types, for whom the niceties of etiquette and protocol are the very vehicle of negotiations. Little shadings of language and behavior carry deep meaning, well understood by all the diplomats.
That's why they are so outraged. Trump is throwing their toolbox out and bringing in tools they regard as crude, counterproductive, and dangerous, which is exactly the image of Trump they already have.
On the other hand, North Korea does not play this game of etiquette and shadings, at least in public.
President Trump knows there are multiple paths to achieve his goal of eliminating this threat, ranging from getting Kim to decide that a new course is merited owing to a new understanding of the carrots and sticks being wielded to encouraging or even helping a coup by the generals to remove him to the most unpleasant of all: overwhelming military force ("shock and awe").
Keep in mind that Iran's mullahs are the other audience Trump is addressing. They are sending billions of dollars a year to Kim in order to get help with their nuclear arsenal. Every move the president makes, every word he speaks, is also directed at them. They have flourished thanks to the deal President Obama gave them, and now they must realize that the game has entirely changed. The North Korea precedent will tell them a lot.
Could "fire and fury" be a coded message?
The deliberateness with which President Trump spoke those words suggests that it was important to get them exactly correct, so they would be recognized for some other meaning than the obvious. The idea of a coup by the generals who control the means by which Kim's power is enforced surely has been on the minds of the President Trump's team. I have no idea if there has been any progress, and neither does anyone else who would write or speak on the subject.
Mr. President-Cursing or Blessing? - Terry James -
There continues to be much turbulence stirred within the American government and America in general. I've written a number of times here that I believe God Himself intervened in the 2016 presidential election. He, I'm convinced, answered the prayers of the people called by His name-Christians. He turned the American ship of state around-or at least began that process of steering in a better direction.
Donald J. Trump, a man who was and continues to be far from a godly man, in my view, was nonetheless chosen by the Almighty to head the project to at least slow if not completely halt globalism's takeover of the United States.
Globalism, I believe, is the conveyance Satan intends to use to take America down the pathway to the eventual installation of his man of sin, Antichrist. That intention has been greatly slowed with the election of Mr. Trump, and the fallen one isn't happy. The uproar amongst his many minions, both demonic and human, is witness that gives testimony to Lucifer's enragement.
Donald Trump is God's man of the hour, even though not a godly man. In that regard, I support God's decision totally, as anyone who reads these commentaries knows. I continue to believe that if the other candidate had won the election, the effects, especially for those of us who value American ideals as founded and who believe that God's Word, the Bible, is truth, would have been terrible.
One day, perhaps soon, the U.S. and the world will experience those feared results of losing such elections. For now, however, there is a Heaven-sent reprieve and we must support godliness and a movement back toward God's way, rather than continue on the path to destruction.
This is why I-we as Christians-must call out ungodliness when it pops up its ugly head, no matter where it does so.
That brings me to the title of this article "Mr. President-Cursing or Blessing?"
The turbulence I mentioned at the outset was full-blown in the White House the week of July 14. It was no doubt stirred and fanned by the breath of the old serpent, the devil. The winds of inter-White House turf war continued this week just past.
President Trump, always one to keep the mainstream media-and the rest of us as well-off-balance with his actions and tweets, did so in his own inimitable fashion. He removed his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and replaced him with Ret. General John Kelly. But, it wasn't that cut and dried.
Mixed in with the shake-up of White House staff was the matter of the desire-the absolute necessity, in my view-to get rid of the so-called leakers. These holdover personnel from the previous administration were wreaking havoc on the president's efforts to move forward with his agenda.
Sean Spicer, the communications director was also let go. In his place came one Anthony Scaramucci. We know now that this mouthpiece seems to have no boundaries on usage of language. And that is what inspired this commentary.
Mr. Scaramucci, chosen by the president to clean out the leakers, began his new job by talking with a reporter of The New Yorker-the hip New York City magazine that looks down on the rest of us as most generally just not with it.
The president's new man in the communication director's seat indeed began to communicate. He did so in a cursing rant he thought was, but in actuality was not, "off the record." It was so bad that it apparently caused Chris Wallace of Fox News to blush when he read it.
Wallace said, "I'm no choirboy, but his [Scaramucci's] language took even me aback."
It was anger, framed in sewer language, whether real or feigned for impact, that to this point we hadn't had a close associate of a sitting president use. I'm no choirboy, either, having grown up amongst my male peers as a youngster in junior high school, high school, university, and even the U.S. military. The report of Scaramucci's vulgar tirade made me feel uneasy. I don't like one so closely associated with my president using such ungodly language. It somehow dirties-sullies the office.
Of course, I realize that this president sometimes uses less than godly language himself. I don't like that, either. This I say for those of you who were about to ask "Well, how about Trump's language?"
When I first heard the report of Anthony Scaramucci spewing forth as he did, my mind began searching for words I once heard reported as spoken by our first president on use of vile language.
I soon found the quote. It was George Washington, then the head general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, issuing a written command. That command said the following:
The General is sorry to be informed -, that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into a fashion; - he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by impiety and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it. (Source: George Washington, Extract from the Orderly Book of the army under command of Washington, dated at Head Quarters, in the city of New York [3 August 1770]; reported in American Masonic Register and Literary Companion, Volume 1 [1829])
We have, of course, become a profane nation in ways that would make our first president wonder, no doubt, how the Lord of Heaven could let us proceed farther as a country. As much as I back Donald J. Trump and his much-beleaguered presidency, I must ask the question: Mr. President-cursing or blessing?
How can we expect the continued blessings of the Almighty when we allow such cesspool thinking and expression as Mr. Scaramucci used, representing a president of the United States, therefore representing us?
Anthony Scaramucci might be a tough, New York guy who uses street language to get things done. He did not have the right to use such while in an office that represents the rest of us, many of whom still prefer a more godly means of expression.
It is good that another general of excellent reputation, General John Kelly, evidently, according to reports, feels the same way. Scaramucci's vulgar tirade to the New Yorker, in concert with his demand to be allowed to bypass the new chief of staff, General Kelly, was asked to leave the communications position he had occupied for only ten days.
Wise decision, Mr. President. Please consider the following in regard to your own language.
God's Word says the following in use of language for the Christian-a tremendous number of those who voted for you:
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. (Ephesians 4: 29)
Even more to the point, James put it this way:
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. (James 4: 8-15)
The Bible and immigration - Bill Wilson -
Attorney General Jeff Sessions Monday responded to a lawsuit against the Department of Justice by Chicago challenging DOJ's crackdown on sanctuary cities that are violating federal law. Sessions stated, "This administration will not simply give away grant dollars to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens at the expense of public safety. So it's simple: Comply with the law or forego taxpayer dollars." Sessions also countered the Chicago Mayor's assertion that enforcing immigration law would require a "reordering of law enforcement practices" in Chicago. Sessions said that exactly what the city needs-"policies that rollback the culture of lawlessness that has beset the city."
Chicago, which has one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation, is besieged with gun-related deaths and shootings. In addition, it harbors much criminal activity, seemingly on purpose, which Sessions said in a released statement, "No amount of federal taxpayer dollars will help a city that refuses to help its own residents." Sessions continued, "To a degree perhaps unsurpassed by any other jurisdiction, the political leadership of Chicago has chosen deliberately and intentionally to adopt a policy that obstructs this country's lawful immigration system. They have demonstrated an open hostility to enforcing laws designed to protect law enforcement-Federal, state and local-and reduce crime, and instead have adopted an official policy of protecting criminal aliens who prey on their own residents."
Over the years there has been considerable disagreement between Christian pastors about whether illegal aliens should be treated as lawbreakers or just allowed to live out there lives in the United States without interference from the government. Some support amnesty. Others support sending illegal immigrants back to their home country. There is always the argument that there are more law-abiding illegals who work hard and struggle to achieve the American dream, than there are criminal illegals who are taking advantage of the system. Some argue that Christian charity must supersede the law. Others argue that illegals are breaking the law as their first act of coming to this country illegally.
The Bible has much to say about immigrants. Exodus 22:21 says, "You shall neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him." This theme is repeated in Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:33, Deuteronomy 23:7, Ezekiel 22:29 and others. The Bible also says in Exodus 12:49, "One law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto the foreigner who sojourns among you." This theme is repeated in Leviticus 24:22, and Numbers 9:14, 15:15, 16, 29, among others. Deuteronomy 24:17 says, "You shall not pervert the justice due the stranger." Clearly, the scriptures say to treat immigrants fairly, but they are to obey the law. In Chicago, illegals are disobeying the law, and the politicians are openly encouraging it by suing the government for the privilege.
Signs of the Approaching Day - By Daymond Duck - http://www.raptureready.com/2017/08/06/signs-of-the-approaching-day/
In my opinion, those that are predicting the Rapture will take place on Sept. 23, 2017 are making a mistake. I am not saying the Rapture won't take place on Sept. 23, 2017 because it might, and it would be okay with me if it did.
Anyway, Jesus will come back, it is guaranteed, be ready all the time, know that date-setting causes people to scoff when predictions fail, know that date-setting has ruined ministries and more. Be careful. You can cause harm and ruin your ministry.
Although I don't think it is possible to know the day or the hour, I do think that it is possible to see the day approaching (Heb. 10:25) and I fully agree with all those who think they see it. Here are some reasons:
First, fornication (sexual immorality) will be a major sin during the Tribulation Period and people will refuse to repent (Rev. 9:21).
On July 26, 2017, Pres. Trump tweeted that the U.S. won't accept or allow transgender people in the U.S. military. Then, Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared before the press for the White House briefing and the reporters were so obsessed with the idea that a great wrong had been done that Mrs. Sanders finally threatened to end the session if they didn't ask about something else. Many in the mainstream media are clearly in favor of fornication and few see a need for repentance.
Second, false accusers are a sign of the last days (II Tim. 3:1-3).
There are millions of honest people in the world, but I am beginning to wonder if there are any honest political pundits. If they support the politicians that have a "D" after their name it is almost a given that they are going to slander and lie about those that have an "R" after their name and vice versa.
Third, the Antichrist will rise to power in a revived EU (Dan. 9:26-27).
The Washington Post recently published an article by shamed ex-Trilateral Commission member Fareed Zakaria, a CNN Host, Time Editor-at-Large and Washington Post Columnist.
Mr. Zakaria wrote about "the bizarre candidacy of Donald Trump" and the fact that he is causing anti-Americanism in the world. Mr. Zakaria cited a Pew Research Center Survey that found that Trump's presidency is causing people to think that the U.S. is becoming irrelevant and the world can do without it. He reported that the world respects the leaders of China, Russia and Germany more than it respects Pres. Trump.
For years, prophecy teachers have said the U.S. will become irrelevant at the end of the age. One of the main reasons they say this is because they believe the world will be governed by a satanic dictator from the EU not the president of the U.S.
The animosity toward Pres. Trump is preparing the way for the U.S. to decline, the EU to be empowered and the Antichrist to rise. The world will cry out for a leader and God will let Satan give it one.
Fourth, required support for the government is a sign (Rev. 13:16-18)
Obamacare is failing. Pres. Trump said he is ready to let it fail. Some say it was deliberately designed to fail. Many say it should be replaced with a single-payer system.
The single-payer is the U.S. government and the system is called "National Health Insurance" or "Medicare for All." Under this system everyone will be entitled to government provided healthcare because it will be a national right. Of course, the government will increase taxes to pay for it so there will really be millions of payers.
This sounds good to some. But it won't be so good when the Antichrist says everyone will support the government by taking the "mark" or they won't be allowed to buy and sell, be eligible for healthcare, etc. multitudes will die (beheaded).
Fifth, putting RFID chips in people may be a sign (Rev. 13:16-18).
In late July 2017, a Wisconsin company called Three Square Market announced that it will be the first U.S. company to pay for its employees to be voluntarily chipped. More than 50 employees signed up. They will probably be chipped by the time this article gets posted. It will soon be the cool thing to do.
Sixth, the Arabs will make a tumult, take crafty counsel, consult together and confederate against Israel (Psa. 83). Jerusalem will be a cup of trembling and a burdensome stone for the nations around her (Zech. 12:2-3).
Some prophecy teachers don't believe in a Psalm 83 war. Each person will have to decide for themselves.
But no one can deny that on July 14, 2017, three Israeli Arabs shot and killed two Israeli policemen at the Temple Mount. Israeli police or soldiers killed the Arabs. Then, Israel installed metal detectors and violence erupted near the Temple Mount. Arab Foreign ministers called an urgent meeting and consulted together on a plan to take sovereignty over the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem.
Seventh, false teaching or false doctrine is a sign (I Tim. 4:1; II Tim. 4:3-4).
On July 24, 2017, World Net Daily reported that an executive agency in England's Foreign and Commonwealth Office wants the Bible reinterpreted, seminaries to teach queer theology (feminism and inclusiveness), and Sunday schools to teach LGBTI beliefs. They also want pastors and teachers to have human rights training so they can understand the issues.
Instead of changing government to conform with Bible teaching and doctrine, this agency wants the church to rewrite the Bible and change its teaching and doctrine to conform to what the government accepts and believes.
Prophecy Plus Ministries, Inc.
Daymond & Rachel Duck
Will Israel feel the heat of Trump's 'fire and fury' North Korea rhetoric? - By Yonah Jeremy Bob -
With tensions increasing between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, concern mounts over international spillover.
While most of the focus in the ongoing war of words between the Trump administration and North Korea is on whether it will lead to war between the US and Pyongyang, how might it impact Israel? Might it bring nuclear conflict or war closer to Israel's borders?
First, it is important to understand what is unique about the current competition between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong- Un over who can sound more bellicose.
Since the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945, eight of the ''nuclear weapons club's'' nine countries have been extremely restrained when talking about nuclear weapons use.
Ironically, bombing Japan was so much more devastating than expected that it created a taboo that has held for decades.
The US and the USSR became even more careful after unintentional escalations and misunderstandings during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis almost led to worldwide nuclear winter.
Rather, even as nuclear weapons may be hinted to from time to time as an implied threat and to show determination, usually the threat is unspoken and any public words are carefully constructed.
Israel has been the most careful of all, not officially confirming its nuclear weapon's state status even as foreign sources consistently say that Israel has been a nuclear power since 1967 and now may have as many as 200 nuclear weapons.
Israel has worried that admitting its status could egg on its hostile neighbors to go after their own programs, much as Iran, Iraq and Syria have tried.
North Korea has been the one exception to the restraint rule, for years threatening its neighbors and the US with fiery rhetoric of nuclear destruction.
For better or for worse, the US and its allies never tried to match the North's rhetoric.
That all changed this week when President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened North Korea that it must cool its rhetoric or "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Since Trump's statement, there has been a heated debate in the US by top Republicans and Democrats about the consequences of Trump's decision to match North Korea's brash verbiage.
Some have applauded Trump, saying that neither engagement nor sanctions alone has succeeded at stopping Pyongyang's nuclear weapon's advancement.
A subset of those supporting Trump's approach also support military action against North Korea to accomplish regime change.
But almost all Democrats, some Republicans and many nuclear theorists believe Trump's statements about playing with a nuclear fire are far too dangerous.
They note in the recent US defense report that North Korea may be much closer to being able to strike US territories or even the continental US than was thought until recent months.
They add that even without nuclear weapons, North Korea's artillery and conventional missiles could kill millions of South Koreans and Japanese as well as hundreds of thousands of US servicemen and civilians abroad.
But how again does this impact Israel? First, if either the US or North Korea actually escalate into using nuclear weapons, the taboo on their use would be broken.
Nothing is more powerful at preventing nuclear weapons use than the taboo that no one can imagine the horrible consequences of their use.
Israel has one "enemy state" that already has nuclear weapons - Pakistan.
Pakistan has never expressed interest in actually fighting Israel, but if jihadists ever took control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, a dilemma debated already for years, a rogue nuclear strike on Israel might be more likely after a US-North Korea nuclear exchange.
Jihadists could be encouraged in general after seeing a weapon's immense destructive power to try more aggressively to steal a nuclear weapon from any of the nuclear club's countries to use against Israel or the US.
The motivation could be either hatred of Israel or a "safer" way to attack the West than directly attacking the US.
Iran is not far from nuclear weapons and many have theorized that some of its jumps toward obtaining a weapon can be credited to North Korea.
If North Korea is attacked with nuclear weapons or feels it is closer to being attacked, it may try to advance Iran close to the finish line. Iran crossing the nuclear threshold and using weapons against Israel would then be more likely.
Iran may also see less value to the 2015 nuclear deal once nuclear weapons are being used again.
Next, the wider Middle East nuclear arms race Israel has feared would be far more likely to happen if countries believed they were all now more at risk of being hit by nuclear weapons because the taboo was broken.
An entirely different, but dangerous, possibility is that Trump continues his bellicose threats, but does not follow through. This could encourage North Korea, Iran (which could drop the nuclear deal) and others to move forward more aggressively, if they viewed Trump as full of hot air. None of this means that Trump's high stakes gamble of matching the North's fiery rhetoric will not work. In fact, most of those opposing Trump's rhetoric merely suggest alternative policies that are more of the same ideas that have not slowed North Korea until now.
But right or wrong, and even as the nuclear taboo has not yet been broken, Trump has broken a taboo relating to nuclear rhetoric. The breaking of this taboo could haunt Israel down the road even if the current conflict has nothing to do with the Middle East.
America's strategic paralysis
- By Caroline B. Glick - http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Americas-strategic-paralysis-502121
It is obvious that Trump continues to seek a clean break with Obama's policies.
On Thursday morning, for the second time in so many days, North Korea threatened to attack the US territory of Guam with nuclear weapons. Taken together with Pyongyang's two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, and the US's Defense Intelligence Agency's acknowledgment this week that North Korea has the capacity to miniaturize nuclear bombs and so launch them as warheads on missiles, these threats propelled the US and the world into a nuclear crisis.
To understand what must be done, it is critical we recognize how we reached this point. We have arrived at the point where an arguably undeterrable regime has achieved the capacity to attack the US with nuclear weapons due to the policy failure of three successive US administrations.
The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations all opted not to take concerted action against North Korea, instead embracing the easy road of appeasement. All three let the threat grow as they kicked the North Korean nuclear can down the road. They engaged in nuclear talks with Pyongyang that North Korea exploited to develop nuclear weapons and missile systems.
North Korea's threats and capabilities tell us that the can has reached the end of the road. It can be kicked no further.
Unfortunately, neither the State Department nor the US media seem to have noticed. Rather than consider the implications of North Korea's threats and its nuclear capabilities, the major US media outlets and Donald Trump's political opponents on both sides of the political aisle have opted instead to attack Trump.
The media and Trump's opponents all focused their responses to North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship on Trump's response to the threat. They stood as one in condemning Trump for responding to the ballooning threat by threatening on Tuesday to unleash "fire and fury like the world as never seen" against North Korea if it continues to threaten the US.
TV hosts and commentators bemoaned Trump's dangerous trigger finger. Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein said, "Isolating the North Koreans has not halted their pursuit of nuclear weapons. And President Trump is not helping the situation with his bombastic comments."
Sen. John McCain, one of Trump's Republican nemeses, similarly attacked Trump and intimated that the US lacks the capacity to follow through on his threats.
"I take exception to the president's comments, because you gotta be able to do what you say you're gonna do. I don't think that's a way you attack an issue and a challenge like this," McCain said.
For his part, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the media on Wednesday that Trump's statement was not a threat to use force, per se. It was, rather, an attempt to speak to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in a language he can understand, "since he doesn't seem to understand diplomatic language."
Tillerson then said that the administration's policy remains the policy of its predecessors. The US seeks to renew nuclear talks with North Korea if it will just step back from the brink. Last week Tillerson said that the US is not seeking to overthrow the Kim regime. This was an extraordinary unilateral concession to a regime that is developing the means to conduct nuclear strikes against US cities.
What Tillerson's statement along with the response of the media and Trump's political opponents all make clear is that at a moment when the US is in critical need of a serious strategic discussion about North Korea, no such discussion is taking place.
And North Korea is not the only threat that the foreign policy elite in Washington - both in and out of government - is failing to address realistically or responsibly.
The absence of serious strategic discourse in the US is just as striking in everything related to Trump's handling of the Iranian threat.
Over the past several weeks, Israeli officials have expressed dismay at the terms of the July 7 Syrian cease-fire agreement the Trump administration concluded with Russia. As Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kupperwasser of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs explained in a pointed critique of the deal, the cease-fire "tacitly gave legitimacy to the prolonged presence of Iranian and Iranian-backed forces throughout the regions of Syria nominally controlled by the Assad regime."
Two weeks after concluding the pro-Iranian cease-fire deal, Trump met with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the White House. Ignoring the fact that Hezbollah and Iran control the Lebanese government, and that Hariri, consequently, serves at the pleasure of both, Trump embraced Lebanon as an ally. He pledged continued US support for the Lebanese Armed Forces despite the fact that the LAF is subordinate to Hezbollah. And he extolled Lebanon's war "against terror."
Last week Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah announced in a televised speech that the LAF in coordination with Hezbollah would be carrying out a strike against ISIS forces along the Syrian- Lebanese border. The LAF would attack from the Lebanese side. Hezbollah and Assad regime forces would attack from the Syrian side of the border.
Nasrallah did not mention that US special forces were fighting alongside the LAF troops. But they were. The Pentagon released photos of US special forces operating from an LAF base. And news agencies reported that US forces were accompanying Lebanese forces into battle.
In other words, the Trump administration has embraced the Obama administration's policy of viewing Iran and Hezbollah as allies in a common war against ISIS.
One of the lone voices who opposed this policy was Col. Derek Harvey. Trump's National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster fired Harvey from his position of Middle East director on the National Security Council last month.
According to a senior US national security source familiar with the issue, Harvey advocated that the administration recognize and act on the growing threat to US allies Israel and Jordan posed by Iran and Hezbollah in Syria.
This week it was reported that both Israel and Jordan briefed US officials involved in cease-fire negotiations and set out their objections to continued deployment of Iranian and Hezbollah forces in the country.
Harvey, the source explains, objected to the Pentagon's insistence on limiting its discussion of US operations in Syria to the campaign against ISIS. He said that Hezbollah and Iran must also be addressed.
Rather than consider his position, Harvey, the source says, was shot down by his colleagues from the Pentagon who accused him of being a warmonger.
And as a consequence, with US forces fighting side by side with Hezbollah in Syria, and so advancing Iranian control over Syria, the Trump administration's policy in the country has become substantively identical to that of its predecessor.
As to Iran's nuclear program, last month Trump again certified that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA nuclear deal. He did this despite the fact that he opposed recertification. Trump was allegedly was blindsided by his national security team McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Tillerson, who reportedly insisted that the US has no alternative at this time to maintaining its commitment to the deal that guarantees Iran will be in North Korea's position within 13 years.
National security sources in Washington dispute this claim. One source reveals that between Trump's electoral victory and his firing last month, Harvey developed a detailed plan for withdrawing the US from the nuclear deal but that McMaster prevented him from presenting his plan to Trump.
Whatever the case may be, the fact is that at least for the next 90 days, the Trump administration remains committed to Obama's Iranian nuclear deal.
Unfortunately, if the US does not act swiftly to forge and implement a strategy for denuclearizing North Korea, it may well face the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran in possession of ICBMs in much less than 13 years.
This is the case for two reasons. First, nothing happens in isolation.
If the US does not attach Trump's threat to attack North Korea to a credible strategy for removing North Korea's nuclear arsenal, then Iran will draw the appropriate lessons.
The second reason Trump's response to the North Korean nuclear crisis will directly impact the burgeoning nuclear threat of Iran is that there is strong circumstantial evidence that the two programs are connected. Indeed, they may be the same program.
Last week, after the UN Security Council passed a new sanctions resolution against North Korea, the regime's No. 2 official, parliament chairman Kim Yong Nam, arrived in Tehran for a 10-day visit.
In the past, CIA officials have claimed that Iranian observers have been present at North Korean nuclear tests. Iran also reportedly financed the Korean-built nuclear reactor in Syria that Israel reportedly destroyed in 2007.
Iran's Shihab-3 and Shihab-4 intermediate range ballistic missiles are based on North Korean designs. Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton recently revealed that during North Korea's 1999-2006 missile testing moratorium, Iran conducted missile tests for North Korea.
If the circumstantial evidence linking the two nuclear programs is correct, then whatever North Korea has will be possessed by Iran in short order.
It is certainly possible that there is more happening behind the scenes in Washington than anyone can possibly know. Far from the television cameras, US national security officials may be configuring strategic goals and programs that will enable Trump to abandon Obama's failed policies in relation to North Korea, Syria and Iran and move the US - and the world - in a safer and more secure direction.
Unfortunately, in light of Tillerson's claim that the US seeks to return to the negotiating table with North Korea, and given the administration's decision to continue to implement Obama's pro-Iran and pro-Hezbollah policy in Syria and Trump's second certification of Iranian compliance with Obama's nuclear deal, it is certainly easy to conclude that this is not the case.
As Kupperwasser noted in his essay on the dangers the US-Russian Syrian cease-fire deal pose to Israel and Jordan, Trump's abidance by Obama's pro-Iranian policies in Syria "worries Israel... because it casts doubt over the depth of American commitment, the ability of the Americans to deliver, or the relevance of the 'Art of the Deal' to the Middle East and international politics."
It is obvious that Trump continues to seek a clean break with Obama's policies. But as his critics' piling on against him following his threat to North Korea and the State Department's determination to maintain Obama's failed policy of appeasement toward Pyongyang both make clear, more than anything else, Trump needs advisers who are capable of helping him achieve this goal. He needs advisers willing to stand up to the pressure and the inertial force of the foreign policy bureaucracy and capable of having a serious strategic discussion about how to proceed in an international environment that grows more daunting every day.
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