Asian Angle | Why would Kim Jong-un trust Trump now he’s ripped up Iran’s nuclear deal?
Pushing Tehran into Beijing’s embrace seems like another example of the Donald “Making China Great Again”
An isolated “rogue regime” with a horrendous human rights record destabilises the region, supports terrorism and embarks on a dangerous nuclear programme. The world community bands together to impose crippling economic sanctions. The regime finally relents and agrees to halt its nuclear ambitions in exchange for foreign investment, trade and recognition.
If that sounds like the ideal scenario for corralling North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, it is.
And if you are looking for a successful template somewhere in the world, yes, there is one: Iran, which in 2015 agreed to suspend its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
Donald Trump, the Nobel-worthy peacemaker in Korea? It’s not so far fetched
The trouble is that Trump, making good on a campaign pledge, just ripped up the road map, and now he’s driving blind, in the dark and seemingly without a compass, over the objections of America’s European allies as well as Russia and China. He has tossed out the only working model for what a North Korea deal might look like.
At the most basic level, Trump first wanted to abrogate the Iran deal because it was the top foreign policy achievement of his predecessor, and this president has shown, if nothing else, that he is determined to uproot and dismantle all things associated with Barack Obama. From health care to environmental regulations to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, if Obama backed it, it has to be bad. Thus, the Iran deal was not just flawed; it was “horrible”, “rotten” and “the worst deal in history”.
