Opinion
Ken Timmerman’s, Threat Watch, www.kentimmerman.com, Fri, Jun 21
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| Vladimir Putin never went to North Korea when Donald Trump was president. That’s a significant fact, and not just a coincidence. For the past twenty years, Russia has allowed the North Koreans to play the “bad boys” of Asia, not openly supporting them but, just as China, not reigning them in, either. Donald Trump’s surprising diplomatic opening to the dictator he initially called “Little Rocket Man” bore the promise of taming the most volatile flash point in the world, where an unpredictable dictator, about whom the U.S. government knew very little, possessed an arsenal of nuclear weapons. That all fell apart, of course, during the 2019 Hanoi summit, when young Kim demanded that the U.S. lift all economic sanctions against it, including nine sets of United Nations sanctions imposed starting in 2006 in response to North Korean nuclear weapons tests. Trump walked away, and the rest is history – or almost. Biden could have picked up where Trump left off, but he has made the hallmark of his administration to be the anti-Trump: whatever the former president did, no matter how successful (think: lower gas prices), Biden would do just the opposite. So Vladimir Putin smelled an opening. As I have said frequently in this column and elsewhere, in the world of geopolitics, weakness is an invitation to aggression. Schoolyard bullies understand this lesson, as well. The Ukraine war also changed the equation. Russia turned to North Korea for supplies of low-tech munitions – bombs and bullets and artillery shells, in return sending North Korea sophisticated technology to enhance their long-range ballistic missiles. The U.S. has predictably condemned both countries for this defense trade, causing big laughs in Moscow and Pyongyang. Now the two leaders say they have signed a signed a mutual defense pact, vowing to defend each other’s territory in the event of external aggression. Putin called it a “breakthrough” agreement. Kim said the two countries have “a fiery friendship.” I call North Korea the latest addition to Putin’s Axis of Opportunism, whose founding members along with Russia are China and Iran. Also this week I have had a front row seat to the political chaos in France, after French president Macron dissolved parliament and called for new elections. Leaders of his “presidential majority” are now saying that his ruling coalition is dead and are looking to their own political future without Macron. The polls don’t offer Macron much hope, with coalitions led by the National Rally on the right and the former Communists on the left each running at 35%. I opined last week that “Little Cookie,” as my French neighbors call the president, was trying to run a quarterback sneak up the middle. Now, however, it’s looking increasingly likely that the quarterback will be sacked. The one piece of encouraging news I see is the public support offered by renowned Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, now 88 years old, to the right-wing National Rally party. Many French Jews were astonished, given the party’s anti-Semitic past. But that all changed with Marine Le Pen, who publicly demonstrated the party’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas in November and just this week expelled a party member for anti-Semitic remarks. Klarsfeld was also motivated by the rank anti-Semitism among the former Communists, who have publicly joined pro-Hamas street demonstrations calling for the extermination of the state of Israel. We are living a moment of dramatic changes in politics and geopolitics, huge shifts in national attitudes and alliances. Which leaders do you think are up to the task of steering those changes, rather than being overwhelmed by them? I discuss this and the advance of Chinese organized crime in the United States on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM and 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Fl, area or listen to the podcast later. Yours in freedom, Ken |
| Ken Timmerman’s 12th book of non-fiction, AND THE REST IS HISTORY: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here. – Senior Fellow, America First Policy Institute (current) – Republican nominee for Congress, Maryland District 8 (2012) – President & CEO, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org – Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2006 Cell: 301-675-7922 Follow me on Twitter @kentimmerman #TheElectionHeist Facebook: ken timmerman Reply to: [email protected] Website: kentimmerman.com |
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
