HELEN RALEIGH: Why North Korea Will Be The Biggest Winner Of The Winter Olympics. “South Korea caved to all of Kim Jong Un’s demands. What did Seoul get in return? Pretty much nothing.”
I have to give the “Little Rocket Man,” Kim Jong Un, credit for choosing his timing so strategically. Only a month ago, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed the toughest sanctions to date against North Korea, which would further suppress Pyongyang’s energy supplies and the usage and exploitation of North Korean labor overseas.
Pyongyang quickly denounced the latest sanctions as an “act of war.” The international community had been hopeful that this latest round of sanctions might be tough enough to get North Korea back to the negotiation table. But the Little Rocket Man came up with an ingenious strategy to break out this economic isolation.
He recognizes that the Winter Olympic games in South Korea provides him with a perfect stage, a rare opportunity to promote his own propaganda and shape world opinion about him and his regime, at little cost to him. To make his strategy work, he needs a willing and foolish partner, and he quickly found one in South Korea’s President Moon Jae In.
Surprising exactly no one who has followed Jae In’s progressive politics.