President Trump made a wise choice in sending CIA Director and Secretary of State-designee Mike Pompeo to meet with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, North Korea, last week.
The visit apparently involved planning for a late May or June summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un. And while the details of that summit are yet to be decided, it will be instrumental in determining how the nuclear crisis is resolved.
Yet, by sending Pompeo to meet Kim, the Trump administration gains three immediate advantages.
First off, the visit allows Trump to gauge Kim’s seriousness about reaching a deal. While Kim’s position will remain in doubt until IAEA inspectors enter North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear facilities, Pompeo can at least get the ball rolling.
After all, the CIA director would have been extensively briefed by the CIA’s Korea mission center on what to ask, how to ask it, and how to assess Kim’s character. Specific questions likely included asking Kim whether and when he would allow inspectors into his country to verify a deal and why he is now suddenly open to a diplomatic compromise (it is not because of Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” strategy).
Yet by sending Pompeo instead of a U.S. representative such as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who has previously visited North Korea, Trump shows that he’s not playing games.
North Korea is hyperattentive to U.S. politics and personalities and knows that Pompeo is a hawk with a penchant for risk taking. In the context of John Bolton’s arrival as national security advisor, Pompeo’s visit symbolizes Trump’s olive branch astride his arrows. Put simply, Pompeo’s arrival tells Pyongyang to play serious or prepare for conflict.
There’s one final advantage Pompeo’s trip offers the administration. Namely, the boost it gives to the CIA director’s effort to win Senate confirmation as secretary of state.
As my colleague David Drucker noted, the visage of Pompeo-the-hawk-turned-peacemaker will pressure undecided senators to give him their vote. If they do not, the administration can say, “Look, they claim to support diplomacy, but now they are obstructing diplomacy on the most important of issues.”
At the margin, this might just see Pompeo skating through a Senate floor vote into Foggy Bottom.
Ultimately, of course, the stakes here are far more significant than palace intrigue. If the North Korean missile crisis is not resolved diplomatically, Trump will have to choose between living with Kim’s ability to wipe out every major U.S. city and the choice of conflict to prevent that end. Neither option is very pleasant.
