The curtain has closed on Act III. The suspense of the uncertain outcome has raised the level of drama for Act IV. Will it be a tragedy or comedy with a deux ex machina ending? If Trumps sees it through we are likely to have it the second way - and Trump has a talent for getting back on his feet from bankruptcy and other personal disasters. However if Trump's numerous other tribulations derail him or the hubris of this critically flawed hero spells his doom; then we have the makings of a Greek tragedy worthy of Sophocles.
Act 3, the overture and opening curtain. Trump and Kim to meet in Vietnam at the end of the month. This appears to be part of the carrot and stick approach Trump has taken with the DPRK. VietNam post war, has pretty good relations with America and a booming economy. Just what kind of stick Trump will use is a good guess. My advice would be take the Teddy Roosevelt approach - "walk softly and carry a big stick".
This is dragging along. Time for Trump to ramp up things before Moon gets carried away and strikes his own peace deal with the DPRK nukes still in place. Still I am pretty confident we'll know where he is parking his missiles so we could remove them at our initiative.
Stall, stall, stall. DPRK makes no progress while quibbling over minor items (US war dead remains). Meanwhile missile development and nuke development continues unabated. Time for Trump to make a serious move. Hopefully he's giving Putin a hint of a heads up so Putin can level with Kim. This is fascinating.
Obviously Pompeo did raise the alternative of not negotiating - hence the "gangster" comments. Obviously Pompeo was making an offer they couldn't refuse. Still Kim and company are dragging their feet. Time for Trump to walk away from the negotiating table for a while and do something to change the DPRK gamesmanship mode.
Very disturbing news. It is clear from what transpired that Trump and Kim did little negotiating and that the nuts and bolts of the still mysterious accord was put together by the respective National Security Teams. What is clear is the Kim brought something new to the negotiations that surprised Trump. In the meanwhile Trump is thumping his chest and Kim appears to have read well Trump's "Art of the Deal". The North Koreans are not to be trusted, yet so far Trump has signaled that he is. We're still only in Act II of this opera. Let's hope it's not a tragedy or a travesty.
Trump say he knows if Kim will be serious in the first few minutes of meeting him. That seems to indicate that Trump, ever the New Yorker, will do / say something bold to make Kim react to him. Trump will then gauge his reaction to see if Kim is serious or not. I would love to be the proverbial fly on the wall when this goes down. Hopefully Kim won't do something stupid like some last minute gamesmanship of his own to give Trump the chance to say he's not serious before the summit starts. They tried that once and it backfired on them.
jpdell33
02-28-2019 @ 11:38 AM