One can imagine that the last several presidents had their sadness for leaving office mitigated by one major relief: “Thank G-D I didn’t have to deal with a major problem with North Korea on my watch!”
The N Korean problem has been simmering for the last dozen years or more, and no president has done anything really concrete to tackle the threat, preferring to resort to placebos of an alternate menu of sanctions, bribes, and ‘deals’. Trump is now possibly going to be the president that has to deal with the issue, rather than hiding it under the carpet. Will he? Just like Bibi Netanyahu with the Iran strike that wasn’t, it is the military that is very concerned about the fallout and is trying to keep the political echelon from pulling the trigger. A war with North Korea will not be pretty, and it will have devastating consequences for South Korea, and possibly Japan. The problem is that by not doing anything, Kim Jong-un will continue to feel untouchable and be further emboldened. The truth is that there is no good solution to this problem, and Trump has had the bad luck to have to deal with bad or worse scenarios on his watch. Let’s see if he will get lucky, or bold…