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President Trump has assured North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that the long awaited summit that started today in Singapore is a “one-time shot” and repeatedly told reporters “we’ll see what happens.” Democrats couldn’t stand the wait. Before the two men even met, Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh told Fox News the summit was “a win for Kim.”

Trump and Jong-un shook hands in an historic meeting and the president told reporters “we will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt.” At this writing, the two have entered a meeting with only translators present, to be joined later by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

It remains unclear whether Kim will dump his nuclear program, as Trump wants, or whether the United States will reduce its military presence with ally South Korea, as Kim Jong-un wants. Sanctions and economic issues are also in play. As the negotiations play out, observers might keep some realities in mind.

North Korea is the first hereditary Stalinist dictatorship, the most oppressive regime ever to exist, with the possible exception of Enver Hoxha’s Albania and the Cuba of Fidel and now Raul Castro. Under Kim Il Sung, who launched the 1950 invasion, North Korea built up nuclear reactors, but it was his son Kim Jong Il, who took over in 1994, who advanced the nuclear weapons program while denying that the regime even had one.

In 2003, North Korea backed out of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In 2005 North Korea acknowledged it had nuclear weapons and in 2006 the Communist regime tested its first nuclear device. All this time, not a single U.S. president pushed back in any meaningful way, and there was never a summit like the one President Trump has put together.

Kim Jong Il died in 2011 and the reigns passed to youthful Kim Jong UN, who busied himself assassinating relatives such as half-brother Kim Jong-nam. That year, North Korea attained the ability to credibly threaten the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile. That prompted President Trump to tell “Rocket Man” that he was on “a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” As the president said, “the United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”

No American president had ever said anything like that, and as with everything President Trump says or does, the American left and establishment media erupted in fury. On the other hand, the prospect of total destruction did catch the attention of Rocket Man his own self. In short order he made an appearance in South Korea with president Moon Jai-in, met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and finally agreed to the first-ever summit.

After Rocket Man got rowdy again, Trump called off the summit and leftist Democrats quickly ran to Kim Jong Un’s corner. Nancy Pelosi said the Korean dictator was “the big winner,” bagging international recognition and “having a giggle fit right now in North Korea.”

As Chuck Schumer saw it, “many of us feared that the summit between POTUS and Kim Jong-Un would be a great show that produced nothing enduring. If a summit is to be reconstituted, the US must show strength & achieve a concrete, verifiable, enduring elimination of Kim Jong Un’s nuclear capabilities.” And so on.

Officially, the Democrats’ wish list for the summit is similar to Trump’s, including a demand that North Korea dismantle and remove all of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. That alone would be a huge victory for the whole world, but there can be little doubt that Democrats would still deride the president who defeated POTUS 44’s designated successor Hillary Clinton, darling of the deep state.

In the excitement of the summit, meanwhile, a key back story may have escaped notice. Despite the suddenly tough rhetoric, nobody should imagine that leftist Democrats and their establishment media allies have always opposed the North Korean regime.

The left’s bible on Korea is The Hidden History of the Korean War, which charged that South Korea invaded North Korea. That was the official Soviet position, and no surprise from author I.F. Stone, a Soviet agent who took money from the KGB. Even so, many on the left still accept Stone’s narrative and blame the United States for dividing the Korean peninsula in 1945.

On June 25, 1950, the United States was woefully unprepared for the invasion. A full 16 countries sent troops and 41 contributed equipment. Communist China fought on the side of the North, supplied by Stalin’s USSR. The United States contributed 90 percent of the troops, spent some $67 billion, and sustained 54,246 casualties, with nearly 8,000 Americans still missing in action.

U.S. ally South Korea is now a thriving democracy and economic powerhouse. Chinese ally North Korea is a bankrupt, starving country still ruled by a Communist dictatorship of exceptional ferocity, armed with nuclear weapons.

Democrats, Republicans, and people around the world might keep all that in mind as President Trump sits down with “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un. The stakes are high, and we’ll see what happens.