OPINION:
Abad novelist couldn’t make this up: American politicians who pretended to sing only from the hymnbook of peace now want to spoil the best opportunity in three generations to pacify the warmongers of North Korea, and turn back the tide of nuclear proliferation which threatens us all. Their fuzzy rationale is that the mover of the promising breakthrough is Donald Trump, and the imperative of his enemies to destroy his presidency must come first. Seldom have political differences become so untethered from the reality of the common good.
Peace on the Korean peninsula has been as elusive as Bigfoot, and the prospect of it lurking near the camp of a pugilist with President Trump’s record has left Democrats shaking their heads in terror with such force that their brains rattle. With Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his side at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump pointed toward an unfolding diplomatic process that could reduce nuclear tensions and might even push toward the reunification of North and South Korea: “As I’ve said before, there’s a bright path available to North Korea when it achieves denuclearization in a completely verifiable and irreversible way.”
Mr. Trump has blazed that bright path with tough talk and a show of U.S. military might. That’s likely what persuaded North Korea’s Kim Jong-un that there’s no happy future in playing “rocket man” and threatening to spray nuclear missiles all across his Asian neighborhood. For an American president who has spent his career building cities, Mr. Kim’s threats to destroy the American civilization, reinforced by intelligence assessments warning of Mr. Kim’s capability of doing so, are fighting words.
Following an unannounced visit to Beijing in March to confer with his Chinese benefactors, Mr. Kim agreed to meet his South Korean counterpart this month, soon to be followed by an unprecedented summit with Mr. Trump to discuss ridding the peninsula of nuclear weapons.
In the Democratic pantheon of processed peace, none stands higher than Barack Obama, who received a Nobel Prize after nine months in office not for what he had done but for what he might do in the future. His strategy of bowing to autocrats at the expense of his own country’s interests encouraged uprisings in certain miserable nations of the world and invited immigration chaos throughout the developed world.
Mr. Trump is poised to eclipse that legacy with actual results. Key to Mr. Trump’s negotiations with North Korea is CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who secretly traveled to Pyongyang during the Easter weekend to lay the groundwork for the president’s meeting with Mr. Kim.
Against a bare 51 to 49 majority, Democrats hoped to defeat Mr. Trump’s choice as secretary of State. They lost the first round Monday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Now the nomination moves to the full Senate, where the administration can expect a few Democrats to join the Republican majority to approve Mr. Pompeo. With confirmation of Mr. Pompeo, the president now has another hand to join John Bolton, the new director of the National Security Council. The loss of the one man who has established a liaison and a rapport with the North’s dangerous and unpredictable leader could only damage the mission.
Mr. Trump still faces an array of obstacles, not the least of which is that the communist regime’s philosophy of “juche,” or self-reliance, does not rule out the use of deceit to accomplish its goals. Mr. Kim’s father easily bamboozled Bill Clinton when he agreed to halt his nuclear weapons program in exchange for food and fuel, took the groceries and gasoline and then failed to make good on his word.
Mr. Trump should scrawl on his palm the Reagan dictum of “trust, but verify,” before he sits down opposite the North Koreans. This should be a moment for Americans to come together to rally to a president on the edge of breakthrough. The peace that success at the summit would bring would be enjoyed by everyone — Republicans, Democrats, whites, blacks, Christians, Jews, Muslims, infidels, atheists, male, female and every one of the mysterious 63 “genders” now said to be available to all.
The Democrats dream of sabotage, lest President Trump accomplish something not merely good, but great, and something he might get credit for. Cutting the president off at the knees with the rejection of Mike Pompeo hasn’t worked, so far, for which we can all be grateful. Now the nomination moves to the full Senate, to rise or fall at the hands of Mitch McConnell, the master of the Senate. He must watch his back.
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