For those living in the northern climes of our great country, the season is just beginning to change.
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Summer has lost its worst heat. The air smells and tastes different — like Spring, except that unlike Spring, instead of freshness, there is an undertone of decay.
At the end of the “American century,” her voice has become as shrill as those listening to it, which are few. And North Korea leader Kim Jong-un is thumbing his nose.
Following a missile fired across the bow of an ally, he has had the audacity to explode a nuclear device, an order of magnitude more powerful than the last. It is unquestionably thermonuclear, in other words a hydrogen bomb, which from released photos appears to be of a size not difficult to position atop a missile.
Under these circumstances, rationality would dictate bringing allies and those with influence over North Korea closer. U.S. President Trump, instead, is fighting a trade war with South Korea, China and anyone else he can sniff out.
Meanwhile, inane military threats continue to make nonsense out of sense, leading South Korea's President Moon Jae-in to assure his people it will be up to his government to decide whether their country goes to war with North Korea or not.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked a few days ago what he thought of Trump. Without a trace of irony, he replied that he himself must do the best for his country and that Trump has to do the same for his country. It seemed like code for saying that he’s quite happy with Trump as president.
He should be. He has a free hand in Syria and the United States is at loggerheads with almost every major world power. World leaders have taken Trump's measure and decided that, as a president, he is a nincompoop.
How did a businessman and TV reality show star with absolutely no political experience, who was manifestly a diplomatic zero, get elected in the first place? As they say in the press, he was "... damn good for CBS," according to CEO Leslie Moonves. The coverage Trump attracted and received gratis from U.S. media was worth US$5 billion, according to MediaQuant. Trump has a knack for it, and the media are happy to go along since it generates ad revenues.
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But then think of the alternative. Hillary the Hawk could have taken us to war with Russia over Ukraine. After all, it was her State Department that initiated the 2014 Ukraine coup. On Dec. 13, 2013, Victoria Nuland, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, boasted of “investing US$5 billion” and “five years worth of work and preparation.”
Everyone knows what the North Koreans want. They want a formal peace treaty, acceptance of their government and more trade and economic links. Enough of the latter and it increases leverage, so why not give it to them?
Unfortunately for us, we have the Donald. The Russians have had their Ivan the Terrible. Never to be outdone, the United States now has Trump the Terrible.
Worth noting, they were not quite so ambivalent in the Middle Ages and had he been a Plantagenet in England, we all know what he would have been called.
Dr. Arshad M. Khan is a former professor based in the United States whose comments over several decades have appeared in a wide-ranging array of print and internet media.