My memories of Princess Diana

I saw Princess Diana three times, each time it was just a brief glimpse of a young woman who was to become an extraordinary icon for this country and around the world both in her life and in her tragic death 20 years ago today. The first time was her wedding day. I was working for the Daily Express as a reporter. The huge black-glass-fronted building was at the bottom end of Fleet Street, and leaning out of one of the front windows provided a wonderful view of the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. And there she was, walking gingerly up the steps in her magificent billowing meringue wedding dress with its long long long train falling back down the steps. She didn't glance back but that view had a lasting affect on me. It was truly a princess moment, totally romantic and emotional. Much later that day, I left the Daily Express and caught my train home from Waterloo. As my train began to quicken after leaving the station, another train drew up and went past. And there she was again!! She was standing with her husband, the Prince of Wales, at the back of the special royal train which had a little viewing gallery. Dressed now in her going-away outfit, she looked blissfully happy and a little overwhelmed. That was my second brief glimpse. The third occasion I cannot put into any sort of chronological order. I'm not sure when it was. But I was driving around Buckingham Palace and preparing to head off down Constitution Hill towards Hyde Park Corner when a limousine came out of a side gate at the Palace. Princess Diana was sitting in the back on her own and she turned and waved at the top windows of the Palace. No one seemed to be waving back. But it was one of those moments which summed up the youth and vitality of Diana. None of these experiences makes me an expert on Diana. There are so many of those around, some of them making pots of money thanks to their various relationships with her. But, like everyone else in the country not living in Buckingham Palace, my briefest of views of the princess uplifted me and placed me firmly on her side, whatever happened later in her short life. She was beautiful, wonderfully coy, and a genuinely caring human being who deserved total happiness but spent much of her life in personal anguish. As Tony Blair famously said (scripted by Alastair Campbell, his press secretary), Diana was the people's princess and she will always remain so. Certainly in my eyes.

Isis bus tour

It was a difficult dilemma. Under a bizarre negotiated arrangement, the Lebanese government with Hezbollah and the Syrian army agreed to allow hundreds of Isis fighters and their families to leave a town on the Lebanese/Syrian border by a convoy of buses and travel across eastern Syria towards Iraq, about six kilometres away. There was no secret about it, so the US-led coalition, always on the look-out for Isis wherever they are, waited for their moment. Do they devastate the convoy of buses and kill everyone, do they try and distinguish which buses have family and which have fighters to try and avoid "innocents" from being killed, or do they just bomb the road the buses are travelling down to prevent them from going any further? Well, we know the answer. they bombed the road and made large craters to stop the buses. This is possibly one of the most extraordinary "humanitarian" decisions by the all-powerful US coalition. They could easily have destroyed the convoy, killing nearly 700 Isis fighters, all of them clearly intent on going to Iraq to support their comrades-in-Islamic-arms to try and kill Iraqis and Americans. Now I can understand the reluctance to destroy the whole convoy which would have been easy, because of the presence of women and children. But it does seem strangely weird that these Isis militants have been allowed to live to fight another day. OK, their bus journey was halted but I assume they will find alternative arrangements to get themselves back with their fellow militants. The deal with Lebanon was done for the sole purpose of getting back the bodies of nine missing Lebanese soldiers who were kidnapped by Isis in 2014 during border fighting between Isis and the Lebanese army. Sometimes you have to make deals with the enemy. But it presented the US coalition in Syria with an unexpected opportunity to go turkey-shooting and kill the 700 militants. I bet there were some in the US military who thought, "to hell with this negotiated agreement, it didn't involve us, let's go kill the lot". But even in war there are codes and rules. It would have looked pretty shocking for the world to watch as the bus-loads of Isis fighters and their families were slaughtered from the skies. So the Isis militants whose faces were covered with scarves should be grateful not just to the Lebanese, Hezbollah and the Syrian army but also to the Americans for the fact that they are still alive. Will they be grateful? I doubt it. But their wives and children might just offer up a prayer of thanks to their God, and might even possibly quietly thank their hated enemy for allowing them to live. War doesn't always have to be about killing.

Kim Jong boo

A long long time ago, a foreign correspondent for the Daily Telegraph was still in Vietnam after the war was over and all of his fellow correspondents had gone back home. There was nothing doing, nothing of any importance to file back to London, but his foreign desk asked him to stay on just in case. Several days went by without anything to file and no word from his London desk. One morning, he was sitting in his hotel with pen poised, wondering what he could telegram back to his desk to remind them that he was still there. Finally, after several moments of thought, he wrote: "Boo!". Now, the circumstances are totally different but I reckon Kim Jong-un has the "boo" complex. He doesn't want World War Three to descend on him but he does want Trump and co to remember he is still there. He was probably highly irritated that western newspapers interpreted his decision to put off firing ballistic missiles towards Guam as a case of him backing down after the US president's warlike threats. So, after a bit of a breather, he must have summoned his generals and told them to prepare a launch of his favourite intermediate-range missile, the Hwasong-12, and to give Japan, and the US, a scare. It was to be his "boo" moment. Make Trump and the rest of the world sit up and take notice. Boo, of course, with a ballistic missile with potential for carrying a nuclear warhead is a helluva bigger boo than the Daily Telegraph correspondent's cabled boo. But the thought struck me as I read about Kim Jong-un's latest scare tactic. Is there any other country in the world that could get away with firing a ballistic missile over the territory of another nation on its doorstep? Kim Jong-un seems confident that whatever he does, provided he doesn't actually hit anything, apart from the deep ocean, he will anger everyone but that's about it. Trump might be thinking to himself that it might be time for him to give the North Korean leader a bit of a boo moment too.

Despite the world's chaos there's always cricket

Apparently not everyone in the world likes or knows about or plays cricket. It's a joyful sport and I am sorry for those who have not enjoyed the pleasures of a sunny afternoon watching batsmen hitting or trying to hit a cricket ball out of the ground. OK, it's not a fast-moving game, it's not like the frantic pace of UK Premiership football, but its measured skills and often slow accumulation of runs is a perfect way to while away some hours when the sun is shining and there's nothing else to really do or worry about. Watching England battle with West Indies in the second Test Match on television this week has been fun and relaxing and sometimes exciting. What more do you want on a Sunday? But as enjoyable is to visit a local ground to watch two local sides play in a day-long match. Sometimes the quality of the cricket can be astoundingly good. Buy a sandwich and a beer and sit near the boundary, forgetting about all those nagging worries that tend to envelope you during the week, it's bliss. I have played cricket since I was a young lad, often playing with my father for a Sussex team called The Seagulls. He bowled slow, cunning spinning balls and I tried to be fast and furious. When I went in to bat my aim was always to hit a six over the pavilion roof. There is nothing more satisfying. One of my great moments when I was in my late thirties was to play against a House of Commons side and during a bief batting innings hit a monstrous six over the boundary straight ahead of me. The ball soared into the heavens. The bowler had the same name as me, Michael Evans. The only other time I met someone with the same name as me was in the Seychelles. I was wandering along the beach when I bumped into a local, younger than me, who was setting up a parachute glide across the sea. We got chatting and I inroduced myself. "My name is Michael Evans," I said. He gave me an astonished grin and replied. "And my name is Evans Michael." In the Seychelles they generally put the names the other way around. We both laughed.

The General Kelly show

Who would have thought not that long ago when General John Kelly was commander of US Southern Command and headng for retirement and an easy life that he was going to become one of the most powerful people in Washington? I don't suppose he ever had any thoughts of going into the political arena. Of course it doesn't happen in the UK. Four star generals don't become Home Secretary or Chancellor of the Exchequer or chief of staff in Number 10 Downing Street. When they retire they pick up lucrative directorships, become fellows at various think-tanks, write the odd memoir and those that get to be life peers join the throng of ermine-shouldered ladies and gentlemen who sit in the House of Lords and occasionally make worthy speeches. In America, a four star general can become president! So John Kelly's rise up the ladder is not by any means unusual. It's just that he has been propelled into the political frontline because of Trump's disastrous first six months. He was called to duty first, of course, as Secretary of Homeland Security, and by all accounts did a pretty good job. As a general he knew how to get his team together to try and implement Trump's bizarre immigration policies. Trump must have been impressed. Suddenly Kelly was his chosen one, the man selected to take over running the White House. He has achieved in a few weeks as chief of staff a remarkable change in atmosphere at the White House. Everyone runs to his orders, reads his regular memos about how they should serve the president and continues to work brutal hours but at least with a better purpose and a well defined framework. I know it's never going to happen in the UK but I can think of a few generals or admirals who would have made excellent ministers or Downing Street chiefs of staff. A career in the military does prepare you for an ordered life, and politics which is normally about chaotic thinking and hopeless governance could do with a bit of straightjacket administration. Obviously there are some good civil servants in the UK who know what they'e doing, but a four-star military man at the helm might just get things done quicker and more effectively. So carry on the good work, General Kelly. I know you're retired and therefore not a general any more. But I bet everyone in the White House thinks of him every day as The General.

Maduro and his riches

The full extent of President Maduro's raiding of Venezuela's riches for his own benefit should be exposed. The ex-chief prosecutor who is now in fear of her life and is currently in Brazil, says she has the evidence to prove Maduro's corruption. But will it bring down his ghastly regime and give the Venezuelan people a chance to live in a proper democracy? Like all dictators, Maduro will no doubt fight his corner and blame the United States for everything. But the prosecutor lady has it in her hands to damage his reputation even more than it is already. Why doesn't the US Treasury which has a brilliant section dealing with illicit financial goings-on around the world start poking into Maduro's activities. Where is his money kept, what properties has he bought with the country's cash, what members of his family are also filtering away Venezuela's riches? This Treasury department has a fantastic reputation for tracing terrorists' finances and pinpointing international sanction-busting companies. If they spent a bit of time hunting down Maduro's clandestine financial dealings and revealing all to the world, the former bus driver's presidential days might be numbered. Then he really would have good reason to blame the US for his downfall!

Trump has made some friends

There you go, Mr President, say the right thing and you make friends. It won't make any difference to the outcome of the war in Afghanistan by sending 3,900 more US troops to aid and assist the Afghan seurity forces but it was still the right moral thing to do. It shows you don't want Afghanistan to go down the tubes, you care for the Afghans' future, I think, and you don't want the humiliation of a total withdrawal, leaving Afghanistan to its fate. The speech was full of grand words, as expected, and there will be no more nation-building, but Trump has made it clear he's going to go after al-Qaeda and Isis in Afghanistan and give more help to the Afghan troops without any sort of deadline or timetable. Everyone, except for the Taliban and Steve Bannon, the ousted chief strategist, have welcomed the Trump speech. Nato is delighted even though most of its members will do zilch to back Trump with more of their own troops, the Kabul government is hugely relieved, having believed what they read in the US newspapers that Trump was considering total withdrawal, and most analysts are saying, well done Trump...for once. This doesn't mean that Trump will now sing and dance through the rest of his presidency, with everyone waving flags, but it's a positive step which won't do him any harm and might keep the angry antis quiet for a bit. But not Bannon, I suspect. He hated the idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan, and told Trump to stick by his promise in the election campaign to get the hell out of Afghanistan. But that was when he was in the White Huse - just a few days ago. Now he's on the outside he can vent his wrath but it won't have the same impact. How he must hate General John Kelly, the chief of staff who got rid of him and helped persuade the president to stick with Afghanistan. It's a real coup by the generals in and out of the White House. They will all be on his side now and will do their best to make the new strategy work. I thought the remark by Trump when he said being in the Oval Office was very different from standing on a soap box pontificating about what he was going to do when he became president. Yessir, the awesoness of the Oval Office does tend to make you think before you speak, although not always in Trump's case.

Trump's Afghanistan strategy

So Trump has finally made up his mind about what to do in Afghanistan. Big announcement due tonight. I suspect after the months of back-and-forth debate and rows inside the White House and between the White House and the Pentagon and the CIA and State Department, nothing radical will emerge. In fact it will probaby sound very similar to what the US has been trying to do for 16 years: defeat the Taliban, force Pakistan to remove the Taliban sanctuaries on its territory, and pronounce a famous victory. None of these things are going to happen. Trump will call it his new South Asia strategy aimed at embracing all nations in the region, including India and Iran. Well, Obama tried that, and so did George W Bush, eventually. Trump will talk of the need to reach a political settlement with a disarmed Taliban playing a role. That's not going to happen either because the Taliban are on a role at the moment. The crucial issue is whether Trump goes against his instincts and allows Jim Mattis, his defence secretary, to send more troops to Afghanistan - about 4,000. I think Trump has probably come round to the view that withdrawing all US troops straightaway would look like an ignominious defeat for America, so that's out. He considered the idea of replacing US troops with private contractors run by Erik Prince, the former Blackwater chief of Iraq war notoriety. But with the sacking of Stephen Bannon from the White House, the former chief strategist who was the main supporter of the private contractor option, I think that idea is dead in the water too. So it's back to square one for Trump. I think he will authorise another 4,000 or so US troops to continue training and assisting the Afghan security forces who have lost thousands of soldiers in recent years in the war of attrition with the i, and he will probably send some more special operations troops to focus on al-Qaeda and the Isis presence in Afghanistan. He will then talk of the need to get Pakistan on side to bring peace to Afghanistan. But Pakistan is in political turmoil and is in no position to do what Trump wants. And while the politicians fight it out to get a new government after the departure of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister on corruption charges, the Pakistani military and intelligence service will carry on doing what they have always done which is to back the Taliban and play a two-faced game, pretending to be listening to America but actually ignoring Washington's entreaties to bring the whole treacherous charade to an end. So Trump will make a big noise, he will say the Americans have done enough and have been at war in Afghanistan too long. Yet he will send more troops but with tough words that they won't be there for ever. No real change then. I could be wrong of course. He desperately wants to cross Afghanistan off his list of priority foreign policy issues, but the military have got to him. Mattis will have spelled out the dire conseqences of a pull-out. It would be another Vietnam, and this time on Trump's watch.

Being radicalised for death

It seems that Isis is many-headed. As soon as you start to think or hope that Isis is being defeated in Iraq and Syria and Libya, and being squeezed in Afghanistan and, therefore, no longer the caliphate-hunting organisation they once were, their followers turn up in Europe, trying to kill as many people as possible. The Barcelona/Cabriles lot were so young and yet so dedicated to kill and die. What's with these people? Why can't they try and live ordinary lives like the rest of us, get married, have children, enjoy life while they can and smile a lot? Their photos show them to be deeply solemn and uhappy human beings. What's the point of their jihadism? What do they think they are achieving in the relatively short lives they are given by their Maker? Why do they hate so much? They have no real cause because whatever they think they want in life they're not going to get it. All they have is hatred and more hatred. It's a cause of despair. They believe that if they sacrifice their lives they will go to paradise and have as many virgins as they want. I mean, come on! Being radicalised is the same as being prepared for death. They are missing out on so many wonderful things, like love and tenderness and caring and pleasure and peace. The young terrorists who destroyed lives in Barcelona and Cambriles and are now dead will never be forgiven and will never enjoy paradise.

UK government warned to prepare for war

An independent think-tank in UK, the Royal United Services Institute, well-respected and with a pretty good track record, has today warned the British government to prepare for war between the US and North Korea because of Trump's volatility and unpredictability. The warning is made by Malcolm Chalmers, who has the grand title of deputy director-general. Oh dear. I think Mr Chalmers has been sitting too long in a comfy armchair! He needs to get out in the real world. After the furious week of warlike rhetoric from Trump and Kim Jong-un, it certainly seemed like war was imminent. But this is all politics. Dangerous politics I agree, but politics. Kim does not want to die in a fiery heap of missiles. War IS possible, you can't discount it. But Chalmers appears to be giving the impression that as war is inevitable, the UK and its civil servants should start preparing now because Trump will want his trusted British allies to join in. Sorry, but this is rubbish and it won't do the think-tank's reputation any good at all. One newspaper, the Independent, has already given a warning that so many civil servants are now engaged in Brexit there will hardly be any left to plan for war. This is such an August story. All the grown-ups must be on holiday dabbling their feet in the ocean somewhere. Chalmers is a perfectly good academic but he did start out life as a seriously left anti-war type, warning of Armageddon at the slightest sniff of cordite. This warning by the Royal United Services Institute should be ignored as a rather silly piece of "oh-my-God-what-shall-write-about" stuff. All the stories appearing in newspapers last week, including The Times, helped to ratchet up the war atmosphere but that was justified interprepation and reaction to a growing crisis given huge momentum by Trump and Kim Jong-un. Now things have calmed down and Kim has backed off. OK, he's still a big danger puss and could make a fatal miscalculation but he knows, and Trump knows because his wise defence secretary has told him, war would be catastrophic. Everyone has got that message. But Chalmers still thinks the UK should start preparing for war on the Korean peninsula. A piece of advice: there are grown-up people in Washington who are slowly having a big influence on Trump. The last thing he wants is to be the president who killed millions of people in a truly Apocalyptic war. And, remember, Kim is only young and seems to enjoy being alive. So, go talk to these big shots in Washington, Chalmers, before you scare the living daylights out of the British people. Your warning is nonsense.

Kim backs down

Nothing moves in North Korea without Kim Jong-un's say-so. So here is the scenario I believe took place after the week of furious rhetoric. Kim orders his generals to devise a plan to attack Guam. The generals then announce, as if on their own initiative, that they are preparing plans for the Supreme Leader to vet. A few days go by as the rhetoric continues to fly around. Guam itself doesn't seem too phased, there are pictures of women on the beaches in bikinis, but the whole world holds its breath. Then the generals deliver their super plan but they are already talking of just missing Guam instead of hitting it bang in the middle. Rhetoric gets stuck between "Kim will be sorry if he goes ahead with it", and "now what the hell is he up to?" Then Kim, after a "long deliberation" decides to put the ball back in Trump's court by saying that he will wait to see what the crazy yankees will do next. He will not have bothered even looking at his generals' plans because he told them what to write in the first place. But he made it sound as if he had made a sensible strategic decision. We can now all laugh. But it's also a relief to discover he's not mad, and actually wants to live to an old age. The chances are relatively slim, Mr Kim, but keep hoping.

Trump gets a taste for war

Last week began with war and ended with war. Trump threatened Kim Jong-un with a fire and fury war and then decided to put President Maduro of Venezuela on notice that he, too, faced possible military acion because of the rising cases of human rights and constitutional abuses. Now, of course, it's another week and everyone is trying to backtrack. No, war with North Korea is not imminent, the US miitary is going about its normal business, nothing has changed, and as for war with Venezuela, Mike Pence, the US Vice-President who is in Colombia, is reasuring everyone in Latin America that diplomacy is the only solution for bringing Maduro to his senses. Well, that's a relief, Trump can go back to his golf and all is right with the world. Well, actually no. Whatever Mike Pence says with his soothing words, Maduro, former bus driver and total idiot and brutal, repressive dictator who is quietly building up a family fortune while the rest of the country starves, will now be looking over his shoulder. Could Trump have really meant it, are the US Marines on their way? I don't think that's a bad thing. After all, it's Trump who will make the decision, not Pence. Maduro might just be a tiny bit scared now, and, if so, perhaps he will look up the word 'democracy' in the dictionary and start behaving more like a proper leader. It's fairly unlikely but the fact that Trump has used the phrase 'military option' might just make Maduro realise that the White House is watching him. No one, least of all the poor and abused and terrified Venezuelan people, will mind in the least that Trump appears to be on their side. So, don't go all lovey-dovey, Mr Vice-President. At least look tough when you are asked during your Latin America tour whether Trump is about to launch a war in Venezeula and don't dismiss it out of hand. Remember, Maduro is one of the most despised leaders of the world, he deserves to lose some sleep at night. As for Kim Jong-un, it's time the world got tough on him. Despite all the sanctions imposed on his regime, North Korea still manages to flourish in the export world, its businessmen still sell North Korean goods, and the so-called secretive Office 39, sometimes also known as Room 39, in Pyongyang, still runs a clandestine operation to maintain a flow of foreign currency to keep Kim and his family in luxury. No one is stopping that. China and many other countries who have signed up to the latest sanctions somehow get away with breaching the international measures, preventing North Korea from becoming a bancrupt wasteland. It's a truly cynical world. So Trump's belligerent rhetoric against Kim and then Maduro last week has not brought us all closer to war, but it just might make Kim and Maduro think more carefully about their next actions. On the other hand, both leaders might also come to the conclusion that Trump is all bluster. "He'll never do it, will he?" If there's a question mark in their heads, then Trump will have achieved something out of all the fire and fury.

The world survives, so far

It has been a helluva week: nuclear war threatened, a Cuban-missile-type crisis, two leaders at each other's throat, superpower America warning of catastrophe looming. But here we are, the weekend is approaching, Trump is playing golf, Kim Jong-un is doing whatever Kim Jong-un does in his spare time, the beaches in Europe are full of suntanning holidaymakers, and Brexit is still a mystery to most of us. So, as Rex Tillerson rather aptly put it when the North Korea debacle erupted, nothing has really changed. The world has survived another week. But I fear this is the sort of world we're going to have to put up with for the next decade. With Kim Jong-un around, and Trump, and Putin and several others not quite in their league, there will be few weeks where absolutely nothing happens, and a lot of weeks where nuclear war is just around the corner. Best to remain opimistic, hopeful and happy and, perhaps stop reading Trump's tweets. And Kim Jong-un? Give it a rest please for the next few weeks and let us enjoy our holidays.

Beware Kim Jong un cunning!

It looks like Kim Jong un may be as cunning as he is paranoid. After the back-and-forth slanging match between him and Trump, North Korea's miitary came up with a careful statement, clearly approved by Kim which toned down the tension down but without seeming to take a step back. The first threat had been to launch ballistic missiles AT Guam, following Trump's threat to hit Pyongyang with fire and fury. But the language subtly changed. Now North Korea, subject to Kim's approval, was going to fire four Hwasong-12 missiles TOWARDS Guam but landing 20 miles off the coast. Tricky one for Trump! If Kim goes ahead and launches the missiles but they land 20 miles away from Guam, how should Trump respond? It would clearly be a deliberate provocation but not an actual attack. No one dies. But Trump must ask himself: what if the next flight of test missiles land ten or eight miles from the coast of Guam? At what point does the leader of the only real superpower in the world say, enough is enough? You see the problem? It's the familiar "red line" ultimatum game. Trump cannot afford to issue an utimatum unless he means to act upon it. So will the firing of four ballistic missiles close to Guam be a provocation too far, and, if so, what does Trump do? Does the law of self-defence allow the president of the United States to launch an attack on North Korea that actually causes damage and deaths? Wouldn't that be seen as an inappropriate response? I think Kim has worked this out for himself and is taunting Trump. The president's "fire and fury" has unfortunately set him up for accusations of weakness if he does nothing as the North Korean missiles get closer and closer to Guam. But there's little point in Trump ordering the launch of, say, a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles to land just short of North Korea's coastline. A waste of Tomahawks for a start and a bit silly. But if the US hits a North Korean ballistic missile base to show Kim that the next time he fires off missiles towards Guam, the punishment will be much worse, it would be denounced by China and Russia (Crimea-annexing Russia!!). So it's very tricky for the golf-playing Trump. He will need to seek advice from all his generals, in and out of uniform, before he reacts or overreacts to the next Kim provocation. Nobody wants fire and fury, Mr Trump. But I reckon Trump is desperate to give that upstart North Korean dictator a bloody nose. With all the firepower at his disposal, however, it would be difficult to make Kim's nose bleed without setting off conflagration. Beware, Mr President.

The danger of war rhetoric

In some respects Donald Trump and Kim Jong un are as bad as each other, mouthing off warnings and war rhetoric like two schoolyard bullies. It was only a few days ago that Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, was telling North Korea, indirectly, that the US was not its enemy. Well it sure as hell is now! Threatening to hit North Korea with fire and fury is a new version of America's shock-and-awe against Saddam Hussein. Was it sensible to be so belligerent? Well, Kim soon came back to say he was now thinking of attacking Guam. These two gentlemen should slow down and start thinking of avoiding war, not inviting it. Rhetoric has always played a key part in warfare, there was tons of it during the Cold War, but the mutual assured destruction policies of the US and the Soviet Union managed to stop either from pessing the nuclear button. But this is a different set of circumstances. We have a superpower with superpower weapons and an unstable, dangerously volatile, deterrent-dismissing country that likes to think of itself as fighting for its survival. Anything could happen, and that is irresponsibly dangerous. Tillerson should get in on the act with more force and persuasion and character. Stop this rhetorical gamble with all of our lives, but especially with the lives of the millions living in the Asia-Pacific region. Calm down!!!

Will sanctions on North Korea work?

The only step available to punish North Korea was more sanctions. They are aimed at reducing North Korea's exports by a third. Well that sounds pretty tough, but I don't think sanctions are going to make Kim Jong un change his mind and say to the world: "Ok I give up. I'm going to dismantle all my nuclear weapons, throw away my ballistic missiles and be a good boy from now on." Sanctions will make it tough for the country economically, but the people will suffer more than Kim. He will still get what he needs for his secret programmes because there are always people in this world who are prepared to make money out of sanction-busting, even to supply Pyongyang with any components he might need to complete his nuclear ICBM programme. For all the work put into nuclear non-proliferation over the last few years, Kim has never had much trouble getting the help he needs. So his coal exports are going to be cut, even China has suspended its imports of North Korean coal, but will that persuade Kim to act differently? There's already huge evidence of malnutrition in the country. Kim doesn't care about his people. All he wants from them is devotion, total loyalty and a false display of happiness. The nuclear and ballistic missile programme will continue. The only question mark is: will Kim order another ICBM test launch in the next few months, ignoring Beijing's request (not order) for the tests to stop. As China supported the new sanctions in the UN Security Council I suspect Kim will say to himself: "Ok, you lot, you're all against me now, just you wait and see what I've got planned next." The new sanctions will make Kim even more dangerous, General McMaster. I'm not against the sanctions, I don't think the rest of the world had any choice, but don't expect Kim to jump to attention and be nice for a change. Is there any possibility that anyone in Pyongyang, preferably military, has begun to have doubts and may start to think about regime-change for the sake of the country's future existence? There probably are such people but I doubt they will ever have the courage to do anything about it. A dictatorship always creates fear, and fear rarely leads to courage. The trouble is, this particular dictator has real nuclear weapons - unlike Saddam Hussein - and ballistic missiles that can travel thousands of miles. He is also young and relatively unworldly. He probably doesn't understand how Washington works, he clearly refuses to believe that Trump may be forced to resort to military action. Maybe he thinks that just because he has nuclear weapons the rest of the world will do his bidding. Sorry, Mr Dictator, the real world doesn't act like that. But he is living in a dangerous cocoon, he probably doesn't read the New York Times and Washington Post every day and with all his fawning officials around him, he may think he is currently ruling the world. Someone needs to go and see Kim and spell it out for him. It can't be South Korea, because Kim won't listen, it can't be Trump or Rex Tillerson because he will refuse to see them. Perhaps that Americam basketball player, Dennis Rodman, who is "mates" with Kim, could go as a special envoy!

How dangerous is North Korea?

Lieutenant-General HR McMaster is a serious-looking dude, and when he warns that North Korea is very dangerous you have to believe that he knows more about Kim Jong un's nuclear plans than the rest of us. So we should be alarmed. But let's see what Kim Jong un's intentions could be. So he's built for himself an intercontinenal ballistic missile that can reach some American cities, he has developed nuclear warheads that can probably be fitted to the missiles within the next year or so. But to what end? Is he seriously going to launch a nuclear ICBM and try and hit Chicago? What's the point? What will he get out of it? The chances are if it's just one ICBM, the US will be able to shoot it down with the interceptors based in Alaska or even the THAAD systems located in South Korea or the Standard SM-3 anti-missile interceptors on warships in the Asia-Pacific region. Either way, a North Korean nuclear attack on the United States is going to be met with an overwhelming response. That doesn't mean North Korea will be obliterated, but as in Iraq, everything of note will be targeted. Everything Kim has been developing to turn his country into a mini-superpower will be destroyed. If he then attacks South Korea, the retaliation will be even greater. Kim's regime will be over, finished. So it's one thing to be all big and brave and threaten to attack the United States with his biggest missiles but what does he think he's going to gain by actually launching one? Zero minus!!! So why does McMaster think Norh Korea is so dangerous that he feels the need to spell it out in public? What does he know that we don't know? Or is it a classic case of the old Donald Rumsfeld connundrum? McMaster knows what he knows but he doesn't know what he doesn't know. In other words, what Kim is actually going to do when he has a nuclear-tipped ICBM. Can the US risk doing nothing preemptively if there is a 60-40 chance that Kim will fire an ICBM towards the US? This is the real danger, not Kim having ICBMs but not knowing what's in his mind. It's the one thing that even the best intelligence services in the world can never be sure about. It's Kim's intentions that pose the biggest threat. If we could find out his game plan, then dealing with him would be easier. This is why McMaster is looking so grim these days. Whenever Trump asks him: "What is Kim going to do?", he has only one answer: "I don't know Mr President."

Trump and his golf handicap

Trump has had enough. After accusing Obama of going on holiday all the time and playing too much golf, Trump is off for 17 days to do the same. Well I don't blame him. He must be sick to death of the White House. He allegedly called the White House a dump when he was last on a golf course. He denied it as he always does but it sounds accurate. He knows he has his general back in the office looking after the shop, so he's off to improve his handicap. Newspapers always think that August is a quiet month for news, and home and foreign desks scrabble around for stories to fill the pages. But that's a dangerous assumption. Things DO happen in August. Take 1990. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. My August that year was certainly ruined by the Iraqi dictator's decision. He probably chose August because he knew the White House would be in sleep mode. So Trump will never be able to relax totally. Kim Jong-un probably has a scheme up his sleeve to ruin Trump's holiday, perhaps Putin too, although he'll want to be riding his horses or white-water rafting or whatever macho thing he likes to do on his hols. Trump's 17 days will give him time to think about Afghanistan, although somehow I doubt he will focus too much attention to it. Trump is fed up with America's military engagement in Afghanistan and he is absolutely right. After nearly 17 years, the US-led coalition is not winning. And there is no prospect of them winning, alhough victory in this sort of war is pretty well impossible. The Taleban will never go away. So people in the White House and the big shots in the Pentagon should be honest with the president. "Mr President, to be honest, we're never going to really win in Afghanistan, because however many troops we have here and however much money we spend, the Afghan security forces are never going to be able to defeat the Taleban." So may be THIS is the answer: bring all the training and advising teams back home, replace them with private contractors on the lines of the scheme offered by former Blackwater chief Erik Prince, and then boost the number of US special operations troops in Afghanistan from the current 1,500 or so to, say, 3,500, to focus on killing missions aganst al-Qaeda and Isis. They are the real threat to the homeland of the United States, not the Taleban. That's what I would do. But, of couse, Prince, a former Navy Seal, is a controversial figure because of Blackwater's heavy hand in Iraq during the Sunni insurgency period. But Prince knows his stuff, it'll cost a lot of money to bring him in, but it'll cost a lot of money to send another 3,900 troops to Afghanistan, as suggested by the Pentagon. There is little point in sending 3,900 more troops, as I have argued in previous blogs. It won't make sufficient difference. So go with Prince, as Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner are recommending, even though neither of them have any experience of military matters, and send in the Green Berets, Rangers and Navy Seals to give al-Qaeda and Isis a hard time. But, sorry, Mr President, you're on holiday. You need your time off like everyone else. Just come back full of good ideas in 17 days.

General in firing mood

The National Security Council is being whittled down to staunch McMaster devotees. Anyone recruited by the disgraced Lieutenant-General Mike Flynn, McMaster's predecessor, is being sacked. Six officials have gone in as many weeks. The latest was Ezra Cohen-Watnick. But here's the thing (I love that expression), this guy was the key contact between the National Security Council and the intelligence services. That was his job, and he is 31!!! Now I'm not being the opposite to ageist, but isn't 31 just too young for someone to be holding such a key job and dealing with veteran intelligence officers who have been in the field for 20 years and have more experience about secret work than Ezra Cohen-Watnick knows about pizza-making. I don't want to be rude, but shouldn't the National Security Council be filled with the best of the best, men and women with incredible talent and experience, plucked from the CIA, the Pentagon, State Department and Treasury? OK, he had an intelligence background but only for a fairly limited time. He joined the Defense Intelligence Agency (Flynn's old stamping-ground) in 2010, trained at the CIA's special training centre known as The Farm and served some time in the Defense Clandestine Service (a sort of rival to the CIA) in Afghanistan. He obviously found favour with Flynn who was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, but did his six/seven years with the DIA make him eligible to be appointed Senior Director for Intelligence Programmes on the NSC? I can just imagine how the CIA top hierarchy must have been pissed off having someone of limited intelligence experience from the DIA turning up and demanding this and that. First of all he was DIA not CIA. Under Flynn, the DIA had tried to compete with the CIA by having its very own clandestine service. This angered the CIA at the time because it meant when a DIA officer was posted abroad to a diplomatic mission, there was always rivalry with the CIA station members. Flynn even tried to say that in some embassies it should be the DIA man in overall carge of intelligence-gathering, shunting the CIA resident chief down a peg. Leon Panetta was CIA chief at that time and he had a row with Flynn and told the White House that the CIA had to remain the kingpins in overseas postings. Panetta was a bigger cheese than Flynn and won the day. But that was under Obama. Then along came Trump who made it clear he hated the CIA. He accused them of all kinds of dastardly deeds. Huge rows ensued. When he appointed Flynn as is National Security Adviser (a DIA man not a CIA man), he let Flynn appoint whom he wanted to join his team. For the top intelligence job, he went for Ezra Cohen-Watnick, his protege from his DIA days. But, as everyone knows, Flynn made big Ruskie mistakes and he was OUT. Cohen-Watnick's days were, thereafter, numbered. But he had two "mates" in the White House, Stephen Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, son-in-law etc etc. Doesn't he get around, old Jared? So when McMaster tried to fire him on an earlier occasion, he whinged to Bannon and Kushner and they spoke to Big Donald who stopped the sacking. But McMaster had a second go and this time Trump agreed. Trump probably isn't at all worried about pissing off the CIA, but McMaster has had good relations with the CIA in the past and during his time at the NSC, and he will want to make sure that the intelligence services get a better and perhaps more experienced liaison guy in the NSC. McMaster rules.

Does Trump enjoy being president?

It's very difficult to guage whether Donald Trump actually enjoys being president of the United States. When he speaks or tweets he either says everything is wonderful, beautiful, brilliant and successful or it's fake news or he wants to spit blood against someone or some country. He doesn't look as if he is in charge of his team, and that must really irritate him. So where is the pleasure? Perhaps it's impossible to enjoy the role of president because it's just too stressful. But surely no one tries to be president unless he or she really really wants the job? So Trump probably thought, "look, I can run a business, so why not have a go at the White House, it'll boost my ego beyond all expectations." But then after a few weeks and months the sheer enormity of the job hits you. There is no such thing as a quiet day, even on the golf course. And in this current world, something big seems to happen almost every day. It's either North Korea, or China, or Russia, or Venezuela or Isis or Afghanistan or Iraq or etc etc. Everyone these days seems to want to take a potshot at America, and it's largely because Trump is such a volatile and unpredictable character and in many ways so unsure of what the hell to do or say half the time, apart from mouthing superlatives about how everything is great, that the rest of the world is just getting on with their stuff without taking much notice of him or America. So does Trump wake up every morning and say to himself or to the mirror or to Melania: "Hey, another day of being president, yipee!" I doubt it. Having General John Kelly masterminding the show will probably help him for the moment but with all his advisers being told they can't speak to him unless they go through the new chief of staff, Trump is going to get a lot of pissed-off people bending his ear - provided they are allowed in to the Oval Office of course. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, had unique access to his dad-in-law but no more apparently. Now it's "Excuse me, General Kelly, can I speak to my father-in-law?" "What about?" "I need to speak about China." "That's for the secretary of state." "But but...." "Goodbye Mr Kushner." So I reckon Trump is not a happy president. I think he has his moments when the power thing grips him, but most of the time he is angry, frustrated and bewildered! "I'm the president,why the hell won't people do as I ask?!" He's probably happiest when he's sitting in his favourite chair at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

White House: "Attention!"

The new chief of staff at the White House has pronounced that he wants to run the president's office pad like a military organisation. So, everyone in the West Wing, shape up, stand up straight, call your superiors Sir or Ma'am and do what General Kelly tells you. None of this sloppy behaviour, insolence and disobedience, thank you. General Kelly will be watching your every move. Military men are moulded in a different way from civilian types. They expect orders to be obeyed, and it won't matter whether it's Stephen Bannon or members of the Trump family trying to get access to Trump. First, they will have to deal with the general. This is good news for the working environment in the White House because there will be less tittle tattle and chat and gossip and plotting and leaking and outbursts and stamping of feet and bad language. But it won't be so much fun!! The White House under military control? Someone,somewhere is going to get sick and tired of the general's daily orders. Someone, probably Bannon, is going to go ballistic, because he's an extreme out-of-the-box thinker and doesn't want to be tied down to a Kelly-style agenda. He will still want to have the ear of the president day and night. There's almost bound to be a bust-up at some point. But right now the retired four-star Marine Corps general is assembling his troops for action and he wants one thing - victory on his terms. Trump loves him for now. Let's see how long the Kelly era will last.