Washington, DC. The options mentioned recently by the Whitehouse on dealing with North Korea were said to be liberal, but few could dream they included placing US nuclear forces in South Korea and open discusion on how to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
CIA officials told President Donald Trump this week that possible options to respond to North Korea’s nuclear program include assassinating Kim Jong-un and putting nukes back in South Korea, informed sources report.
Trump administration officials leaked news that the ideas were given to Trump by the National Security Council in advance of the his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in Florida, so Trump could better prepare for negotiations with Jinping.
The CIA strategy would potentially be considered if China does not help influence North Korea by using additional sanctions and diplomatic actions, according to administration members of the Trump Whitehouse.
The idea of returning nuclear weapons to South Korea, which were removed 25 years ago, would be the first nuclear deployment since the Cold War ended. One official who was part of the NSC review said he doesn’t think deploying nukes to South Korea amid the high tensions state the US currently faces with North Korea “buys more for us than it costs.”
Admiral James Stavridis announced such a move would “only inflame the view from Pyongyang. … I don’t see any upside to it because the idea that we would use a nuclear weapon even against North Korea is highly unlikely.”
Though an assassination attempt on North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un sounds like a wierd scene from a bad movie, “it is a “tempting strategy when you’re faced with a highly unpredictable and highly dangerous leader,” Admiral Stavridis said.
“The question you have to ask yourself is what happens the day after?” he said. “I think that in North Korea, it’s an enormous unknown.”
Other potential measures could include infiltrating the nation with US and South Korea forces to destroy key structures like bridges to prevent the transportation of mobile missiles. All options that constitute acts of war upon an ally of China and Russia. Others point out such “James Bond” fantasies are also considered crimes under United Nations and International Criminal Court statutes.