Friday, February 2, 2018

Kissinger: 'Temptation to Deal' with North Korea 'with a Pre-emptive Attack is Strong'

WASHINGTON – While he said he agrees with the aggressive statements President Trump has fired at North Korea, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned Congress last week against potential military intervention near Russian and Chinese borders without the world’s support.
 
The Trump administration has signaled that North Korea would be crossing a red line if it developed nuclear capability for its intercontinental ballistic missile program. Yet some policy officials and military experts claim that North Korea has already crossed that line, or is at least very close to attaching nuclear warheads to its missiles.
 
Kissinger offered his thoughts on the impending “fork in the road,” in which the administration may consider pre-emptive military action or increasingly tighter sanctions against the regime.
 
“We will hit that fork in the road, and the temptation to deal with it with a pre-emptive attack is strong, and the argument is rational, but I have seen no public statement by any leading official,” Nixon’s secretary of State told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “But in any event, my own thinking, I would be very concerned by any unilateral American war at the borders of China and Russia, in which we are not supported by a significant part of the world, or at least of the Asian world.” READ MORE