Trump isn’t intimidating N. Korea with his bluster

22. “We do not seek a collapse of the regime. We do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula. We seek a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”

3. “We want to bring Kim Jong Un to his senses, not to his knees.”

Which of those three comments represents the policy of the United States with regard to North Korea?

The answer: All of them.

And therein lies the problem for the administration of President Donald J. Trump.

The conflicting pronouncements aren’t causing North Korean President Kim to have sleepless nights, and they certainly aren’t prompting a change in his nuclear ambitions.

But what the unclear policy statements from the Trump administration have done has caused the American people to wonder if military conflict with North Korea is under serious consideration in the White House. And, they have made U.S. allies around the world uneasy.

The first quote about possible “major conflict” came from President Trump in an interview with Reuters wire service. Trump was being interviewed in conjunction with his first 100 days in office, a milestone he reached Saturday.

The second quote came from U.S. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson in an interview last week with National Public Radio.

Tillerson talked about the administration’s goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula with NPR after he urged the United Nations Security Council to remain firm in its enforcement of economic sanctions against the government in Pyongyang. The call was in response to President Kim’s refusal to end the testing of missiles that are designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Indeed, after Tillerson addressed the U.N. Security Council, North Korea launched another missile. However, as in previous tests, this one also failed.

The third comment about North Korea came from Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, during his appearance last week on Capitol Hill. Harris’ congressional testimony attracted attention because it represented a major departure from what has been the Trump administration’s position on North Korea.

TRUMP’S MONKEY WRENCH

Thus last week, as foreign policy experts and veteran Korean Peninsula watchers were analyzing the comments from Tillerson and Harris, along came President Trump to throw a monkey wrench in the works.

A news analysis by veteran New York Times writer David Sanger sought to explain the mixed messages coming out of the administration.

“It was only a few hours after his secretary of state cracked open the door on Thursday to negotiating with the North Koreans that President Trump stepped in with exactly the kind of martial-sounding threats against the country that the White House, until now, had carefully avoided,” Sanger wrote.

In warning of a “major, major conflict with North Korea,” was Trump simply indulging in his trademark nondiplomatic rhetoric to force President Kim to abandon his nation’s nuclear and missile tests?

Or, was he lured into a war of words with Pyongyang because of his inability to look at the big picture when it comes to global affairs? Here’s what the New York Times’ writer Sanger had to say about the president’s comment:

“But the most likely explanation is that Mr. Trump, who until now has largely avoided taking the bait that the North Korean propaganda machine churns out with its own warning of imminent war, simply reverted to an old habit: sounding as tough as the other guy. The problem is that it clashes with the message his administration has been sending out in recent days that no pre-emptive strikes are planned and that there is plenty of time and space for diplomacy. Mr. Trump’s aides talk instead of an ‘integrated strategy’ of escalating military and economic pressure to force diplomatic engagement.”

The problem with Trump’s posturing is that he’s confronting a mercurial leader who believes in the use of force to not only hold on to power but to achieve his goal of a unified Korea.

Therefore, if President Kim believes that Trump is serious about using military force against North Korea, he will not hesitate to strike pre-emptively against the South or even Japan.

The positions taken by Secretary of State Tillerson and Adm. Harris should be the foundation of the administration’s policy toward North Korea. Saber rattling is too risky.