Pre-emptive strike on North Korea – “tempting” “a rational argument” -says Kissinger

A nuclear first strike of North Korea is ‘tempting’, says legendary U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger as Kim Jong-un warns Trump is pushing towards war, Daily Mail, 2 Feb 18

Kissinger, 94, warned that North Korean denuclearization was vital

He said that relations with Kim Jong-un’s country have reached a key juncture

The U.S. must now choose between pre-emptive military action or increasingly tighter sanctions, he said

His warning came before North Korea warned that the U.S. is pushing the whole world towards a ‘nuclear war’ By Alastair Tancred For Mailonline and Afp 3 February 2018

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has said that the temptation to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea ‘is strong and the argument rational’.

He told a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that North Korea poses the most immediate threat to global security, arguing that denuclearization of the regime must be a ‘fundamental’ American foreign policy goal.

The veteran diplomat was speaking before North Korea warned that the U.S. is pushing the whole world towards a ‘nuclear war’ in its latest letter submitted to the UN.

Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger), former secretary of state George Shultz, and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, were testifng before the Senate Armed Services Committee on global security challenges

It said that joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea – coupled with American rhetoric in the Korean peninsula region – were bound to derail improving relationships between the two Koreas.

The Trump administration’s aims are ‘to provoke a nuclear war, which will undermine the improvement of inter-Korean relations and the easing of tensions,’ North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said in the letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Mr Kissinger said that relations between the U.S, and north Korea had reached ‘a fork in the road’ in which the Trump administration may consider pre-emptive military action or increasingly tighter sanctions against Kim Jong-un’s 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,’ President Nixon’s secretary of State told members of the Committee.

Kissinger, who at 94 continues to advise on foreign policy matters, joined two other foreign policy heavyweights – former Secretary of State George Shultz, 97, and ex-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, 72 — in testifying to the Committee about global security challenges.

The elder statesmen presented a picture of mounting international threats, including nuclear proliferation, Chinese authoritarianism, and Russia’s interference in US elections and its interventions in Eastern Europe.

‘The most immediate challenge to international security is posed by the evolution of the North Korea nuclear program,’ Kissinger told the Senate Armed Services Committee, describing an ‘unprecedented’ scenario………… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5344473/Kissinger-Nuclear-strike-North-Korea-tempting.html