President Trump's latest salvo to threats from North Korea left divided opinions in its wake in Washington. Some saw it as arrogance, while others describe it as meeting fire with fire — and thus appropriate.
The saber-rattling resulted in a threat to the tiny island of Guam, well within reach of the Hermit Kingdom. On Tuesday evening, North Korea strongman Kim Jong Un threatened a pre-emptive military strike against Guam, home to several large U.S. military bases. The threat, which caught most of the world by surprise, came hours after President Trump warned the Pyongyang dictatorship that they would face ”fire and fury, like the world has never seen.”
In the wake of the dangerous rhetoric there has been growing debate in the foreign policy community over whether Trump’s language was over the top for a president. Three former White House aides who worked in foreign policy area and in communications spoke to Newsmax about Trump's latest volley.
“It’s an extraordinarily irresponsible piece of rhetoric, and it’s beneath the dignity of a U.S. president,” Lawrence Haas, former Clinton administration official and onetime director of communications for Vice President Al Gore, told Newsmax. “The world looks to America for strong, calm, reasoned, determined leadership, not loud, boisterous posturing.”
Haas added that the “fire and fury” phrase “brings us no closer to resolving the North Korean crisis. Indeed, it brings us closer to a dangerous misstep by one side or the other.”
Richard V. Allen, formerly national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, had a different view. Regarding the comment, said Allen, “I'd say to him: ‘Promise only what you can deliver. And will you deliver? Seoul, sir, is a scant 32 miles from the demilitarized zone of the 38th parallel. Study the military situation, and listen to your advisers before lighting the match."
Former Nixon White House aide Bruce Herschensohn told me he agreed that the comment was the latest evidence Trump’s noninterventionist “America First” campaign theme was over.
“Yes, I’m so very glad he said what he said about North Korea,” said Herschensohn, now a professor of foreign policy at Pepperdine University, in Califormnia. “But keep in mind that he does not believe anything he said on Friday retains any meaning by the following Tuesday. In fact he believes that anything he said on a Friday was not said by him at all. That means he can get on with his Tuesday without conscience.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.