Taking a page from National Security Adviser John Bolton's playbook, Vice President Mike Pence threatened North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with regime change and a violent death if he does not cooperate with U.S. demands in his upcoming talks with President Trump.
If Kim does not make a deal, Pence said, U.S.-North Korea conflict will "end like the Libya model ended." In Pence's telling, this is not a "threat" so much as a "fact," but it is unlikely Kim will hear it that way. His regime views Libya as a negative object lesson for cooperation with Washington, as after voluntarily relinquishing his nuclear weapons program, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was deposed with U.S. help and brutally killed.