Trump may have to choose between John Bolton and Kim Jong-un

The North Korean regime has two distinctly contrasting views of the White House. They, or I should say, their supreme leader Kim Jong-un, love Donald Trump but they hate John Bolton, national security adviser. They think he is a warmonger. Hahaha. I always love that when a dictator who has been not so secretly developing nuclear weapons to threaten the world criticises someone else for plotting war. Anyway, it's a problem for Trump. After just returning from his "historic" handshake and smile meeting with Chairman Kim six inches over the border in North Korea, Trump has had to read a New York Times article which says he, Trump, is considering a major concession with his North Korean love partner, agreeing to a freeze of Kim's nuclear weapons pogramme in return for a lifting of some economic sanctions. Freeze, not annihilation of the whole lot. Bolton read that and exploded. Neither he nor any of his national security team had even suggested such a thing, he said, and absolutely no way was it going to happen, not while he was national security adviser. Whooops! He may have just predicted his own downfall. Trump is the Big Negotiator-in-Chief. He knows that in the end someone has to give a little in order to grab the main prize. In this case, if the New York Times story is accurate, Trump might say to Kim, "Look, fella, freeze your dodgy programme and invite the whole world in to see you've stopped, then we can talk about lifting some sanctions, and THEN, the second phase will be to dismantle all your nasty bombs. OK?" Actually, if Trump is thinking along these lines, it makes sense. The headline aim is still ridding the Korean peninsula of all nuclear weapons but to get there you need to take some lower-down-the-scale steps. But to Bolton, and to Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump-supporter but highly critical of any proposed niceness to North Korea, this argument is anathema. It's all or nothing with them. But come on you two. Kim is not going to do a Gaddafi. The mad colonel actually agreed to get rid of all his chemical and biological and nascent nuclear stuff, probably because he genuinely thought keeping it all would eventually lead to his downfall and a grim death. Poor demented colonel, he got rid of it and it still led to his eventual downfall and a very grim death at the hands of a mob. No, Kim is not going down that path. His future, or so he thinks, is dependent on him having nuclear weapons. So there is absolutely no chance that he will do Bolton's bidding and give the whole lot up overnight and turn his country into a tourist paradise. The leaked stage-by-stage route sounds reasonable and has a better chance of success than the Bolton blockbuster approach. But of course if Trump does decide to try the phased approach, Bolton's days are numbered. It's an extraordinary thought but at some point Trump may have to choose between Chairman Kim and Bolton. I suspect Kim will win that battle.