A chat with Bernie Sanders: Bernie Sanders on how to avoid war with North Korea

[Donkees]

In this excerpt of the Bernie Sanders Show, former secretary of defense William J Perry and Sanders have a conversation about North Korea and nuclear weapons

Wednesday 19 July 2017

This article is part of a new series, A Chat with Bernie Sanders. The series will run abridged transcripts of episodes from the Bernie Sanders Show. The show seeks to be a place where people can learn about the progressive agenda.

In this first article in the series, Bernie Sanders talks to former secretary of defense William J Perry, who served under the Clinton administration. The subject of their chat? North Korea.

Excerpt:

Perry North Korea today has a real nuclear weapons arsenal. That’s very dangerous. But North Korea is not a crazy nation. They are reckless, ruthless but they are not crazy. They are open to logic and reason.

Their main objective is to sustain their regime. If we can find a way of dealing with them that they can see gives them an opportunity to stay in the regime, we can get results.

Sanders But do you think Kim Jong-un is a leader with whom we can seriously negotiate?

Perry He is a leader with whom we must negotiate. He is working on getting an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile]. In all probability he will achieve that goal within a few years.


Sanders An ICBM capable of reaching the United States?

Perry Yes.

In the meantime, he already has medium range missiles capable of reaching Tokyo and Seoul. The problem is here and now. We can do things to stop that and slow him down, and we should be doing those things for our own security.

Sanders You mentioned that Kim Jong-un is not crazy. What do we know about this very secretive regime?

Perry Everything we know suggests that he is just an extension of the Kim family. All of the leaders they’ve had in the past have been ruthless. All of them have been reckless. All of them have pursued a nuclear weapon program.

His main objective is to stay in power. We have to understand, that’s what he’s trying to achieve. Our understanding and our goal would be to lower the danger from the nuclear weapons and, eventually, to eliminate them.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/19/bernie-sanders-show-podcast-william-j-perry-north-korea?CMP=twt_gu