Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder was an outrage, but not one that should alter U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia. The same principle is true of Otto Warmbier’s murder and U.S. policy towards North Korea.
Warmbier, a young American citizen, died in June 2017 after suffering abuse at the hands of his North Korean captors. Warmbier’s fate says much about the distinct evil of North Korea’s governance. Yet I was shocked to see the anger that met President Trump’s tweet on Christmas Eve in relation to his plans for a new summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. CNN White House reporter Abby Philip, summed up this frustration.
[Read: Federal judge orders North Korea to pay $500M in damages to family of Otto Warmbier]
On the day Otto Warmbier’s parents receive a judgment that Noryh Korea must pay a $500M settlement for the death of their son, Trump tweets his excitement to meet the man responsible for his death. https://t.co/nI44HM0iEt
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) December 24, 2018
Don’t get me wrong, I respect Philip and lament Trump’s recent treatment of the reporter on the White House lawn. But Philip and the many others who concurred with her sentiment are wrong.
Trump is absolutely right to push forwards with constructive and complimentary diplomacy with Kim Jong Un. What happened to Warmbier and his family is terrible, it must not drive our strategy toward North Korea. Because the simple truth is that when it comes to U.S.-North Korea relations, Warmbier is only peripherally important.
I know that those words read harshly. But consider what is more important: the life of one innocent, or the loss of life that might follow a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula? The answer is clearly the latter. What’s also clear is that Trump’s diplomacy with Kim Jong Un is of instrumental importance in preventing a military conflict. In turn, considering the fanatically paranoid and manifestly hostile perception of North Korean leaders towards the U.S., Trump’s effort to build Kim Jong Un’s personal confidence in him is well-judged. Indeed, I believe Trump’s pleasant regard towards the North Korean “Chairman” is very clever. It represents a hard-headed realism as to what matters most here: achieving North Korea’s effective nuclear and ballistic missile disarmament.
Time is of the essence in terms of effective diplomacy. Kim is sending strong signals that, absent progress of some kind, he will return to the missile test brinkmanship of 2017. While that doesn’t in any sense mean Trump should appease the North Koreans, it does mean that the president should expedite a summit with Kim Jong Un. America needs strategic clarity as to whether the North Korean leader is open to a serious deal, or is simply playing for time and U.S. concessions.
So yes, Warmbier’s fate is a tragedy. But as with Jamal Khashoggi, there is much more at stake here than the murder of one innocent who cannot at this point be brought back. Many, many people depend on a peaceful diplomatic resolution to the North Korean ballistic missile crisis.
