By Aaron Miller
The U.S has announced a provision for military options against North Korea in response to several remarks by commentators that there are no military options available for dealing with North Korea.
The national security adviser H.R. McMaster and U.S Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, have stressed during a White House briefing on the United Nations General Assembly that President Donald Trump has military options to stop North Korea.
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The U.S national securty advisers admitted that military options are not the avenue they would want to take, but both Haley and McMaster said, they are available to the President.
“For those who have said, and been commenting about a lack of a military option, there is a military option,” McMaster said. “Now it is not what we would prefer to do.”
Haley said that the UN has “strangled their economic situation at this point” but the results of that are going to “take a little time but it has always tried to take effect.”
“What we are seeing is they continue to be provocative, they continue to be reckless. And at that point there is not a whole lot the security council is going to be able to do from here when you have cut 90% of the trade and 30% of the oil,” she said. “So, having said that, I have no problem with kicking it to James Mattis because I think he has plenty of options.”
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Former top White House aide Steve Bannon had told a reporter in August that there are no military solutions for North Korea.
“Forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “There’s no military solution here, they got us.”
Bannon has since been relieved of his position of Chief Stategist to President Trump, after a series of television interviews in which he made statements that contradicted the U.S president. Bannon was for a while considered one of the most influential figures on Donald Trump’s team, until things fell apart. Other important figures in Trump’s camp had frowned against the public statement which appeared to make the U.S appear powerless in the face of Kim Jung-Un’s continuous missile and nuclear weapons building programme.
PREPARED
“We are prepared, we’re prepared militarily, we’re prepared with our allies to respond militarily,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters, speaking at the close of US-Japan security meetings with Mattis.
Mattis agreed, saying at the time that “there are strong military consequences if the DPRK initiates hostilities.”
President Trump had been aggressively combative with the North Korean trouble shooter during the growing stages of their political feud, with commentators and members of his team urgng him to measure his words. The world’s most powerful man , originally believed to be a loose cannon by his critics, has seen exercise alot of restraint. However, the pressure to act is gradually returning, with the concerns not to plunge the world .
North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido Friday, the latest in a stream of missile tests that have looked to defy the international community.
France’s Foreign Ministry said they were prepared to work on tougher U.N. and EU measures “to convince the regime in Pyongyang that there is no interest in an escalation, and to bring it to the negotiating table.” They added that North Korea will also be discussed during next week’s annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly.
The intermediate-range weapon launched by North Korea on Friday from Sunan, the location of Pyongyang’s international airport, was a further demonstration of defiance by North Korea, whoc continue to show their advancing technological development.
The audacity and confidence of these tests suggest North Korea is ever closer to achieving its goal of building a military arsenal that can target U.S. troops both in Asia and in the U.S. homeland.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the missile launch as a serious violation of Security Council resolutions. The tension is getting critical and looking almost inevitable that war may breakout anytime. The world watches with a feeling of helplessness as the situation continues to worsen rather than improve.
The launch is the second to flyover Japan in less than a month, and the first since North Korea’s sixth nuclear test and new United Nations sanctions on the country.
Trump has threatened “fire and fury” in response to North Korea’s threats.
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