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It appears that the outreach to South Korea by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, which began in the lead-up to and during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, did not end with the Olympics closing ceremony. Kim Jong-un has just hosted talks with a high-level delegation from South Korea, led by its national security director Chung Eui-yong. The South Korean delegation came away believing that these talks have borne some fruit. A possible summit meeting between Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in was discussed, which could occur in late April at the so-called Peace House, which is located on the South Korean side of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone. In the meantime, the two Koreas have reportedly agreed to set up a telephone hotline between the leaders of both countries.

The South Koreans also indicated that North Korea would agree to halt tests of its nuclear weapons and missiles in conjunction with opening talks with the United States on the denuclearization issue. According to Chung Eui-yong, the North Koreans are looking for a credible security guarantee and the end to military threats against it, in which case they believed they would not need to keep their nuclear arsenal. He claimed that North Korea was interested “in an open-ended dialogue to discuss the issue of denuclearization and to normalize relations with North Korea.” Notably, Kim Jong-un is said to have withdrawn, at least for now, his insistence that the United States and South Korea suspend their joint military exercises as a precondition to any negotiations. “Kim Jong-un simply said he could understand why the joint exercises must resume in April on the same scale as before,” Mr. Chung declared. “But he said he expected them to be readjusted if the situation on the Korean Peninsula stabilizes in the future.”

South Korean officials disclosed Tuesday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un says he’s ready to talk with the U.S. about giving up his nuclear weapons. That’s news because Kim has long said he’d never negotiate away his weapons. But the world has seen this diplomatic movie before, only to learn that the North was merely buying more time to build more bombs and ballistic missiles.

“I think that their statement, and the statements coming out of South Korea and North Korea have been very positive,” President Trump said Tuesday. “That would be a great thing for the world. A great thing for the world. So we’ll see how it all comes about.”

Realism is warranted. The hopeful case is that the North’s reversal is a response to the Trump Administration’s policy of pressure through tighter sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Building on United Nations sanctions, the Treasury Department has been blacklisting companies, most of them Chinese, for trading with the North.

As the Journal reported last week, trade across the border with China has declined sharply. Despite its official ideology of self-sufficiency, the North depends on imports of energy, food and raw materials to survive. It also needs luxury goods to reward top officials.

The Trump Administration’s threats of military action if sanctions don’t work may also have secured more Chinese cooperation, even if a military strike carries huge risks. Beijing has been forced to consider the possibility of conflict between nuclear states on its doorstep. It’s also notable that the North told South Korean officials that it agreed to the U.S. demand to halt nuclear and missile tests while talks are underway. Perhaps Mr. Trump’s tough line wasn’t as dangerous and destabilizing as his critics claimed.

Yet the U.S. and the world should still be skeptical that Kim will really put his nukes on the negotiating table. Kim’s father and grandfather used talks to stall for time while they continued the nuclear program in secret. They also extracted concessions in return for talking and broke every promise they made.

The new diplomacy offer also follows a familiar Pyongyang pattern. First make nuclear or missile advances that increase its threat to South Korea and the world. Then make a diplomatic bid once a dovish government takes over in Seoul. This time Kim took advantage of the recent Olympic games and the aching, almost palpable, desire of new South Korean President Moon Jae-in for talks.

The South Koreans said North also demanded “security guarantees,” which it may define as the departure of U.S. forces from Korean peninsula. That would be a security and geopolitical disaster as long as the North retains its military threat.

The primary goals of American foreign policy are to make our citizens, friends and allies secure and to make our adversaries think twice. There are moments in history when well-timed, well-placed military action will have the effect of causing fear — and moments that, if allowed to pass by, ensure the opposite. President Barack Obama’s failure to uphold the international conventions against chemical weapons worked against American interests in what is perhaps the ugliest battlefield of the 21st century. President Donald Trump’s decision to attack the Syria’s Al-Shayrat Military Airbase from which the Assad regime launched chemical attacks in 2017 was a welcome reversal, though with limited results.

The illegitimacy of chemical weapons use is one of the few points of international consensus in war fighting. The first treaty against it is more than 115 years old – the Hague Declaration of 1899, which was followed by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

But the Bashar Assad regime in Syria — with the active support of Russia — has again been using chlorine barrel bombs against the 400,000 hostage civilians of Ghouta. Having failed to pass a Security Council resolution to sanction Syria (Russia and China vetoed), the United Nations Security Council succeeded in passing a unanimous resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire. Less than 24 hours later, there were new reports of chemical raids killing hundreds.

WASHINGTON — UN Ambassador Nikki Haley told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual policy conference that “standing up for your friends is critical” and the administration is looking at tying foreign aid to voting with the U.S. at the United Nations.

Haley told the crowd that she was raised with “absolutely no patience for bullying” as she grew up in the only Indian family in small South Carolina town. “That didn’t mean every day was great,” she said. “My family were immigrants. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari.”

“You don’t pick on someone just because they look differently than you, you don’t pick on someone just because they think differently than you, or because you can,” she added.

Haley said that upon arriving at the United Nations she learned that Israel “gets bullied because the countries that don’t like Israel are used to getting away with it — just like that little girl in South Carolina, that doesn’t sit well with me.”

As examples of the administration countering UN bullying, Haley cited the U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO for “attempting to change ancient history” by recognizing Hebron in the West Bank as a Palestinian world heritage site in need of protection.

Haley said when she started attending a monthly UN session on the Middle East and found it to be “an Israel-bashing session it was actually shocking.”

“I can’t say that we’ve solved the problem but I can say that several other countries have followed our lead,” she said. “What used to be a monthly Israel bashing session now has more balance.”

On moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, Haley declared, “Like most Americans, I knew what the capital of Israel was.”

“America did not make Jerusalem Israel’s capital,” she said, but simply recognized reality “denied for too long.”CONTINUE AT SITE

The Winter Olympics’ closing ceremonies also concluded North Korea’s propaganda effort to divert attention from its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs. And although President Trump announced more economic sanctions against Pyongyang last week, he also bluntly presaged “Phase Two” of U.S. action against the Kim regime, which “may be a very rough thing.”

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in January that Pyongyang was within “a handful of months” of being able to deliver nuclear warheads to the U.S. How long must America wait before it acts to eliminate that threat?

Pre-emption opponents argue that action is not justified because Pyongyang does not constitute an “imminent threat.” They are wrong. The threat is imminent, and the case against pre-emption rests on the misinterpretation of a standard that derives from prenuclear, pre-ballistic-missile times. Given the gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea, we should not wait until the very last minute. That would risk striking after the North has deliverable nuclear weapons, a much more dangerous situation.

In assessing the timing of pre-emptive attacks, the classic formulation is Daniel Webster’s test of “necessity.” British forces in 1837 invaded U.S. territory to destroy the steamboat Caroline, which Canadian rebels had used to transport weapons into Ontario.

Webster asserted that Britain failed to show that “the necessity of self-defense was instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.” Pre-emption opponents would argue that Britain should have waited until the Caroline reached Canada before attacking.

Would an American strike today against North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program violate Webster’s necessity test? Clearly not. Necessity in the nuclear and ballistic-missile age is simply different than in the age of steam. What was once remote is now, as a practical matter, near; what was previously time-consuming to deliver can now arrive in minutes; and the level of destructiveness of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is infinitely greater than that of the steamship Caroline’s weapons cargo. CONTINUE AT SITE