Tillerson’s Asia trip shows US is ready to lead again on North Korea

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made a significant announcement during his recent tour of the Far East, declaring that the U.S. policy of “strategic patience” with North Korea is over.

Tillerson’s announcement recognizes something that three previous U.S. administrations were unwilling to admit: “strategic patience” failed. While America and our allies exercised patience, the North Koreans, Kim Jong Un and his predecessors were moving full speed ahead on their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

This extended period of patience with North Korea has left Tillerson, President Trump and his entire administration with limited options in dealing with Kim and his bellicosity. We know North Korea already has limited ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities and there is uncertainty about how much progress it has made in merging nuclear weapons with longer-range ballistic delivery technology.

This makes any step intended to limit North Korea’s future ambitions fraught with risk.

This “what” in the current geopolitical scenario with North Korea is challenging enough for America’s intelligence community. But the “why” as it pertains to Kim’s recalcitrance is also important: Why won’t he negotiate?

One of the more overlooked leaks from the intelligence community of late provides valuable insights into the mind of Kim. The intelligence community assessment, as reported by The New York Times, states that Kim will be, at worst, entirely unwilling to negotiate away his nuclear weapons program.

{mosads}While this assessment might seem unsurprising at first blush, the reason for Kim’s attitude is instructive. Intelligence suggests the explanation lies in Kim having witnessed what happened to the last dictator who negotiated away his nuclear weapons program and tried to integrate with the West. That was Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi.

In 2003, Gadhafi began negotiations to reduce the scale of his nuclear program, shipping it to the United States. He also paid reparations to the families of his terrorist attacks and for the next eight years, helped the U.S. fight threats from radical Islam.

In 2011 President Obama expressed America’s appreciation to Gadhafi, but Obama ultimately double-crossed Gadhafi. He aligned the U.S. with forces committed to Gadhafi’s violent overthrow, who met a grisly end at the hands of Obama’s Libyan allies.

The intelligence community’s assessment only references Kim’s firm commitment to keeping his nuclear program based on what happened to the Libyan despot. But there’s another dictator Kim is likely watching: Syrian President Bashar Assad. 

Obama’s 2012 declaration that any use of chemical weapons by Assad in the Syrian conflict would cross a “red line,” and trigger an American military response, turned to be be an empty threat. Assad killed his own people with chemical weapons and nothing happened.

Foreign policy decisions have long-term impacts, and we are now living with them. Libya today is a failed state, exporting military ideology and weapons throughout North Africa while embedding jihadists into refugee flows to Europe. When Obama drew his red line it should have meant something, but Assad casually strode over it. Today, Assad continues his aggression, inviting involvement by Russia and complicating any chance of peace or stability in the region.

Say what you will about Kim Jung Un, but the man has learned his lessons. He first saw what happened to Gadhafi for playing ball with the U.S. He then saw what happened to Assad for not playing ball with the U.S. Kim probably regarded Obama’s America as feckless, but with Tillerson’s trip east, America is leading in Asia once again. I’ve spoken with some of our allies in the region and they welcome American leadership.

But no one should underestimate the headwinds facing the Trump administration. Libya and “strategic patience” sent the wrong messages to the world. Kim is moving aggressively toward becoming a nuclear threat with extended reach and no apparent intention of slowing down.

Tillerson has a big job ahead of him unwinding Obama’s foreign policy messes and North Korea is one of the big challenges facing Trump. The president’s response will have a dramatic impact on world politics and diplomacy.

But the biggest challenge facing President Trump and Secretary Tillerson is making America’s word and handshake mean something again.

Pete Hoekstra is the Shillman senior fellow at the Investigative Project on Terrorism and the former chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. He is the author of “Architects of Disaster: The Destruction of Libya.”

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.