Kim Jong Un Will Never Give Up His Nukes

Yonhap News/Newscom via ZUMA

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Here’s my simpleminded take on North Korea:

  1. Kim Jong Un wanted nuclear weapons for several reasons, but the main one was to make sure North Korea didn’t end up like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
  2. Now that he’s got them, he feels like he can start to make deals without worrying about being on the business end of American regime change.
  3. This means that he might well be willing to enter into substantive talks. But he will never give up his nukes.
  4. Also: he will never give up his nukes.
  5. And: he will never give up his nukes.

Did I mention that he will never give up his nukes? I did? Well, he won’t.

That’s my guess, anyway. The question is whether (1) the US and South Korea accept that and move forward or (2) continue their sanctions war until (2a) they finally get tired of it or (2b) North Korea becomes a wasteland of famine and revolt. At the moment, my money is on 2a.

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Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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