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Gorka on the North Korea Crisis

Dr. Sebastian Gorka returned to the “Seth and Chris Show” to discuss the escalating tensions between North Korea, the United States, and the rest of the civilized world. Dr. Sebastian Gorka returned to the “Seth and Chris Show” to discuss the escalating tensions between North Korea, the United States, and the rest of the civilized world.

Chris Buskirk: I am Chris Buskirk and he is Seth Leibsohn. This is the Seth and Chris Show. We’re going to jump right to it today because we are joined by Dr. Sebastian Gorka. He is a deputy assistant to the president of the United States, to President Trump, and a second-time guest on the Seth and Chris Show. Dr. Gorka, welcome back. Thanks for joining us.

Sebastian Gorka: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Buskirk: I have this whole battery of things I wanted to talk to you about, and then, the North Koreans have to go and do what they do. Before we get on to other issues, the threat level, I guess the assessment of the North Korean threat has been upgraded by our national security establishment. Explain what’s gone on today, and where we go from here. The president has taken to his Twitter account to, I guess, put the North Koreans on notice that they will be treated to some fire and fury. I like the way he uses the phrase, but tell us where we are.

Gorka: Right. I think it’s very clear that we did something quite historic over the weekend. You have not only the 10 temporary rotating men. This is a national security of the UN Security Council, but also the five permanent members, which includes Russia and China, agree in a 15-to-0 vote to impose the most stringent sanctions package ever on North Korea, with the expectation that North Korea would now finally realize that they had painted themselves into a corner, and that they have to deescalate. It seems as if that is not the case. You saw the recent statement made by the regime and, as such, the president, and I’m not going to go into any operational details, the president and his team are taking all necessary measures to protect the United States and her interests regionally.

Buskirk: How did we get here? I know the history. There’s been a, I guess, we would say that the U.S. policy towards North Korea, if we didn’t have a feckless policy towards them, we wouldn’t have had any policy at all over the past sort of 20 years, and now, the Trump administration is left to clean up the mess. What’s the short version for people who don’t know it? How did we get here, and what do you … again, not asking you to divulge anything you can’t or shouldn’t, but we need big picture?

Gorka: No. I agree it’s a very important question. This didn’t happen overnight. This isn’t something that we arrived on January the 20th, then suddenly, there’s [inaudible 00:02:32] these decades and decades of mismanagement and the wrong strategies being chosen. First, it was the Clinton White House expecting some kind of concessions from the North Korean regime and got into various arrangements so basically facilitated their program, the point of which, the Obama White House did exactly the same. The way to think about this is blackmail. It is North Korea, which is a dictatorial regime. It is more Stalinistic than Stalin Soviet Union, constantly using saber rattling, constantly using escalatory measures such as ballistic missiles testing and nuclear testing, to try and squeeze constant, more increasing levels of concessions out of the Western community, and that has just stopped. We have a new president. He’s not [inaudible 00:03:30] world regimes. He’s managed the good offices of not only the White House himself, but also Secretary Tillerson and Ambassador Haley to expect a global consensus against Pyongyang. That’s where we are today, and now, the regime in North Korea has to make a very simple decision. Is it prepared, as Rex Tillerson indicated, to take those very simple measures, such as the ending of these illegal tests, to indicate that they have understood the message and that they no longer have any friends? That’s where we are today, and that’s the reality of decades and decades of facilitation.

Buskirk: For people who are going to be watching this, is that the thing for us to watch? That’s the marker, is the end of testing?

Gorka: That’s the first thing, yes. I mean that’s the most obvious thing. There’s a commitment from that regime to no longer execute these illegal missile test, then we will know that sanity has triumphed and that they’re out of the blackmail business. That won’t be the end of the story because it still is a dictatorial regime that’s involved in all kinds of heinous international activities, but it will be a strong indicator that they have finally responded in the right direction with the international community’s pressure.

Buskirk: Now, at the same time that the United States is dealing with the nuclear threat from North Korea, on the other end of the spectrum, we have Iran, which is also a budding or a wannabe nuclear power. There’s a relationship between these two countries, right?

Gorka: We can’t discuss anything that’s not unclassified in this environment, but yes. I mean, look, dictatorial regimes, even if their ideologies differ, that tends to stick together. That’s why we see the various geopolitical linkages that we see in the world today. The club of dictatorships is shrinking, but even if they don’t share the same ideology, they do scratch each other’s back for obvious reasons and, therefore, you will find operational linkages between even the strangest of bedfellows. element_content=””]

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