A Victory for Sanity in World Politics
By Robert Scheer
Truthdig
President Donald Trump walks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa
Island in Singapore. (Evan Vucci / AP)
President Trump gave peace a chance like few presidents before him, and if
his critics cannot respect that fact, shame on them. What he and the hawks
around him have done is as profound a shift in U.S. foreign policy as it is
unexpected in its departure from an America-centric view of the world.
At the heart of this bold initiative is an openness to the wisdom and
concerns of other nations, beginning with the government of South Korea but
including most definitely the insights of the leaders of neighboring China,
Russia and Japan. It is a break with the demonization of the North Korean
enemy in the spirit of Richard Nixon's opening to Communist China, which
effectively ended the Cold War.
That's the real news here, a profound example of risking peace instead of
war, and it should be celebrated in a nonpartisan spirit as a victory for
sanity in world politics, whatever one's prejudice against President Trump.
To nitpick this courageous step while ignoring its enormously positive
potential for reducing the risks of nuclear annihilation would be foolhardy
in the extreme. Of course, much remains to be negotiated and implemented on
the path to eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. But
Trump's willingness to separate regime change from that effort, and to
postpone ritualistic war drills, is crucial to diplomatic success and a
welcome departure from the militaristic obsessions of recent presidents,
both Republican and Democrat.
