Whatever comes next, North Korea's Kim Jong Un can claim a win against Trump
By BARBARA DEMICK
MAR 09, 2018 | 4:15 PM
No matter what else comes of it, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has scored a huge win with President Trump's agreement to sit down for a face-to-face meeting.
For decades, North Korean officials have angled to meet with a high-level U.S. representative using all measures of persuasion, whining, wheedling, threatening and even hostage-taking. To secure a chance at that meeting with a sitting U.S. president, no less, amounts to success beyond their wildest dreams.
From a propaganda standpoint, getting into the same room with Donald Trump would elevate the 34-year-old Kim, a pariah and terrorist in the eyes of much of the world, to the status of a world leader.
"This has been North Korea's long-standing objective to get the president of the United States to come,'' said Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They just got lucky with Trump. They have been monitoring him very closely. They saw him as a window of opportunity with a personality that likes to grab attention.''
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http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-trump-north-korea-analysis-20180309-story.html
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