It seems not to matter that we are at the brink of a war that may spread beyond Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran and Georgia and then where? To Syria? To North Korea? To China? That we in America are in economic doldrums and are seeing small businesses fold and houses reclaimed by banks and a smouldering panic that is palpable everywhere.
My last passport, I had North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Liberia, Guinea... I had, like, every war-torn country in there.
China has been trading technology and systems with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, North Korea now for years and years. Indigenously? No they're not going to have one. But they're getting dangerously close to having one. We can all have reason to suspect. Why would they not if they're trading with these countries?
Of other countries, to impose economic sanctions, it'd really begin to dry up the enormous amount of money coming into North Korea, a lot of it from China - from Chinese banks - whereas, if we sanction the Chinese banks, there could be friction with China. But this is something we're going to have to face.
Saddam is neither friend nor brother to us, and he will never pay off debts to us. It's the question of precedent: today the United States doesn't like Iraq, tomorrow Syria, then Iran, North Korea and then what: everyone else?
The solution to North Korea is the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. China could influence the North; it supplies 80 to 90 percent of North Korea's energy. The United States have to put pressure on China in order for China to pressure North Korea.
The world has grown increasingly dangerous, with a nuclear madman in North Korea testing an ICBM a month, mullahs in Tehran plotting the takeover of the Middle East, Russia engaging in 'frozen conflicts' in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, a very hot civil war in Syria, and China appropriating a vast swath of the Pacific to itself.
China is ruthlessly pragmatic. It supports North Korea for its own selfish interests. And I believe that China no longer considers us an ally. The current president, Xi Jinping, cultivates close relations with South Korea. He has never met with me, the leader of North Korea, something that the leader of China has always done. At the grand celebrations in Beijing two years ago commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, he placed the president of Russia and the president of South Korea at his side. In North Korea, we pay a lot of attention to ceremonies and what they signal.
Like Afghanistan before it, Iraq is only one theater in a regional war. We were attacked by a network of terrorist organizations supported by several countries, of whom the most important were Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
I can't take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.
We're seeing Iran now through the Shia militias in Iraq. We're seeing Iran in Syria; we know the Quds Force is in there.
The North Korean regime remains one of the world's leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action.
President Obama is viewed by much of the world as feckless, weak, and incompetent, even antiAmerican - and that's by nations who are our allies and friends. As it pertains to China, Iran and North Korea (who just set off a nuclear weapon) they spit in America's face. They have no respect for America, and they sure as hell have no fear of America.
If there's any country that has the capacity not to control North Korea, but to influence North Korea, it's still China. The Chinese always say they have very little influence. They have more than they say they do. We should put pressure on them to do it and there's finally, we're seeing the first signs of a little bit of Chinese disaffection. At some point they're getting tired of the antics of this country. This is a dangerous ally for China to have. And the more Chinese can pressure them and put the economic screws on them, the better it will be for everybody.
The targets of George W. Bush's 'axis of evil' speech were not Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Those regimes don't need a State of the Union address to know where they stand with the Bush administration. The intended audience was elsewhere: in France, Russia and China.
By threatening war against Iran, Iraq and North Korea in his now-famous "Axis of Evil" address, the president painted himself into a corner. Either Bush now goes to war against one of these regimes, or he will be humiliated and exposed as a bellicose bluff.
The fact is that the American government and NATO have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan. Their next targets will be Syria and Iran.