Policy Analyst James McKeon spoke with Mic about President Trump’s tweeted threats against Iran.
The retort mirrored some of the harsh threats Trump leveled against the Kim regime in the summer of 2017, which the president suggested in April had prevented nuclear war and pressured Kim to come to the negotiating table with South Korea and the U.S. This is quite a dubious proposition, James McKeon, a policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, said in a phone interview.
The diplomatic breakthroughs on the peninsula were the result of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s outreach to Kim, McKeon said, whereas Trump’s Twitter threats seem more like impulse than method.
“I don’t think there’s any coherent strategy,” McKeon added.
While Trump’s threats to both North Korea and Iran may be off-the-cuff, the administration could have different aims in its approach to Iran, Johnson said.
“This isn’t like North Korea, where the president was acting on his worst impulses independently,” he said. “There is a very established constituency in Washington for outright war with Iran, and its reach now extends to the highest levels of the White House.” Read more