President Donald Trump must reverse years of failed foreign policy and use "real military and intelligence sophistication" to deal with the nuclear threat posed by North Korea following its test of a missile that could hit American soil, The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol told Newsmax TV.
"It shouldn't be a big surprise," Kristol, who serves as editor-at-large of the conservative publication, told host Steve Malzberg on Wednesday. "[North Korea] has been improving the missile and getting a nuclear weapon small enough for it.
"[We have to] stop this kind of thing from happening before it gets out of hand. Now, of course, it's a tough situation. People of both parties have kind of fallen down on this, and no one wants to make a tough decision. It's understandable. It's risky to stop this.
"I'm not a big fan of Trump, as you may have noticed over the last few months, but his instinct on this is right in the sense that he sees the policy of the past was a failure. He knows something went wrong."
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Kristol said Trump must be ready to make "some tough decisions."
"It requires some real military and intelligence sophistication obviously . . . but I sort of give Trump credit for seeing that this is a problem that you can't just go on the way we were," he told Malzberg.
"Military options are tough, but who knows what the cyber options are? . . . But let's also make clear to them that their regime is finished [if] they do stuff . . . We're bigger and stronger than North Korea and nothing is at risk, but you just can't let it go ahead.
"It doesn't mean we have to have some massive bombing attack. There's a lot we can do probably covertly. Maybe we're doing a lot that we don't talk about. Let's hope so. What would be more comforting if these things were blowing up on the launch pad instead of being launched more than 75 miles."
North Korea reportedly used a new, more powerful weapon in its first-ever intercontinental ballistic missile launch Tuesday, ramping up its ongoing nuclear threat to the world.
CNN reported the two-stage missile fired Tuesday — which is believed to have the capacity to reach Alaska — has been classified as a brand-new, never-before-seen weapon by U.S. intelligence.
Sources told the network, before North Korea's test launch of its KN-17 liquid-fueled missile, the military attached a second-stage missile on top of it. The additional part had a separate 30-second burn cycle, allowing the weapon to travel further.