A victory for America, Israel, and the Republic of Korea … in the Middle East and in Washington
Donald Trump, joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announces the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. (Image: shutterstock)
The new leftist administration of President Lee Jae-myung, which is causing concerns in Washington for his independent (non-values based) foreign policy proclivities, seems to be “looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
The anti-American background of his prime minister, the harsh condemnations of the U.S. and Israel by ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lawmaker Choo Mi-ae, who is a key ally and important figure in Lee’s camp, as well as the excessively neutral statements of his diplomats at the United Nations and the stridently anti-Israel views of many in Lee’s broad left “united front” supporters (including the pro-Hamas views of the prime minister nominee’s brother and political ally), no doubt motivate such blindness on Lee’s part.
However, pro-U.S. conservatives and moderates in the ROK perceive, and hopefully the editorialist writers and journalists at the conservative Chosun Ilbo will finally come to realize, that the U.S. and Israeli strikes against the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons development-related facilities are a blessing for the ROK, not only because the mullahs who brutally rule Iran are allied with North Korea and China, but also because of the dramatically shifting political situation in Washington, D.C. as a result of the successful strikes.
Just as the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes devastated Iran’s hopes of developing nuclear weapons, the political fallout of President Trump’s decision to go forward to remove this growing threat to the U.S., Israel, and the entire free world has crippled, at least temporarily and hopefully more permanently, the pro-North Korea forces and also the isolationist forces of the left and right who are to varying degrees hostile to the U.S.-ROK alliance and stubbornly dedicated to the appeasement (what they euphemistically term “engagement”) of North Korea and China.
The same voices who were opposing any U.S. action against Iran are the same voices who have advocated appeasement of North Korea and are generally hostile to, or openly opposed to, the U.S.-ROK-alliance.
In particular, the “peace agreement with North Korea” crowd in D.C., including some foreign policy analysts and pundits, a few individuals in Congress and in a couple of think tanks such as the ultra-libertarian CATO Institute to the left-isolationist and China-appeasing Quincy Institute, which is known for its deep hostility to pro-U.S. conservative forces in the ROK, have all suffered a serious defeat.
These individuals, some of whom were acting as de facto lobbyists for the previous Moon Jae-in government and are currently lobbying for a series of major, unreciprocated concessions to North Korea under the guise of the deceptively misnamed and terribly ill-conceived “Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act” (HR 1841).
Some journalists and opinion writers in the ROK media, including especially the conservative media, have clearly exaggerated the power and influence over the Trump administration of these U.S. isolationist forces of the far-right and far-left. Their mistake was to give undue weight to the sway of a small clique of online pundits and podcasters, and a few members of Congress, whose views, according to recent opinion polls, do not reflect the views of the overwhelming majority of President Trump’s most loyal “MAGA” supporters or of the president’s closest advisors. In fact, these isolationists have been condemning President Trump over Iran, and he has in turn not only criticized them, but also effectively sidelined them. Unwilling to heed their advice with regard to Iran, it is likely that going forward he will be equally reluctant to trust their counsel as to East Asian or specifically Korean issues.
The “unholy alliance of convenience” among those on the pro-North Korea and pro-appeasement left and those on the isolationist right is clearly demonstrated by the striking similarity of the arguments and even the terminology which they use, particularly as to their hatred for Israel.
The Quincy Institute has become a mecca for such figures, bringing together in common cause a motley collection of pro-North Korea activists and agents of influence, China-appeasers, left-libertarians, partisan supporters of the DPK, old-style antisemites, sympathizers with the Iranian regime (some of whom have been accused by Iranian dissidents of being assets for Teheran), and other assorted elements on the fringes of American politics.
That explains why the rhetoric of pro-North Korea, anti-ROK activists, some of whom are writers for that think tank, so closely mirrors that of its key members. In fact, one leading figure at the Quincy Institute, speaking at a conference in Seoul, declared that North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons was a stabilizing factor in Asia.
This think tank’s views form an “arc of appeasement,” stretching from Iran to China, and including North Korea. Although named after President John Quincy Adams, whom they claim was their ideological inspiration with regard to his supposedly noninterventionist foreign policy, the truth is that President Adams favored an assertive, in some respects even “hawkish” stance in world affairs, and was also a “Zionist before Zionism,” in that he, unlike the anti-Zionists at Quincy, was an advocate of a Jewish national homeland in the Holy Land.
By dismissing and even openly criticizing the protests of the isolationist cabal in Washington, and by taking the very actions regarding Iran which they had counselled him against, President Trump has essentially excluded them from his inner circle and almost “excommunicated” them from his “MAGA” movement, which contrary to some observers in the ROK and the U.S., has never been fundamentally isolationist in nature.
The fringe elements, a couple in Congress and a small clique at think tanks, as well as small number of podcast hosts, Iranian regime sympathizers, China-appeasers, DPK loyalists and pro-North Korea activists, clearly do not have the influence over President Trump which some feared that they might have had.
The fact that these forces have now been sidelined amounts to a victory for President Trump, for Americans, and also for the ROK. Korean conservatives and moderates should therefore be as pleased at and as grateful for the U.S. strikes on Iran as are American conservatives, moderates, and the people of Israel.
Other than the obvious “losers,” the terrorist mullahs who oppress the Iranian people, North Korea’s dictator, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the only others who are now despairing are the far-left elements and other isolationist forces in the U.S. and the ROK, including political figures such as Choo Mi-ae and others like her in the Lee administration.
Choo, a very influential voice in the DPK, has long been known for her anti-U.S. and pro-China stances. In 2010, on a visit to Los Angeles, she participated in a meeting of a pro-North Korea group and warmly greeted pro-North Korean activists there. In 2017, Choo dismissed accurate reports about Kim Jong-un’s assassination of his half-brother. Also in 2017, she was a keynote speaker at the CCP’s World Political Party Congress in Beijing, where she praised Xi Jinping as “the architect of the new era.”
After the strikes on Iran, Choo denounced the U.S. action as illegal and praised America’s extreme isolationists. Is she now playing the role which fellow leftist Moon Chung-in used to play for former President Moon Jae-in, launching verbal “trial balloons?” Is Choo now saying what some figures in the Lee administration think, but are reluctant to publicly say?
Lawrence Peck is a correspondent for NK Insider based in Seoul and Los Angeles. Having intensively researched and closely monitored the activities of pro-North Korea and other extremist groups and activists in the U.S. for over 25 years, he has been recognized in the U.S. and Korea as one of the leading American authorities on such topics, and has lectured, written extensively and been interviewed on such topics in the U.S. and Korea. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. He previously worked in Korea for several of the largest Korean business groups in the fields of intellectual property licensing and international business development. He also serves as an advisor to the North Korea Freedom Coalition of the U.S. Lawrence may be reached at the email address: lawrence.nkinsider@gmail.com
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