Foreign affairs
Tulsi Gabbard warns talk of regime change in Venezuela undermines the Trump-Kim summit
If you want to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nukes, ixnay on the regime change talk already. So warned Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a 2020 presidential candidate, on Twitter Tuesday morning:
The connection between North Korea and the fate of two nations half a world away may seem slim, but Pyongyang has pointed to past U.S.-orchestrated regime changes in similarly distant Iraq and Libya as reasons not to denuclearize.
Neither Iraq's Saddam Hussein or Libya's Moammar Gadhafi could "escape the fate of destruction after being deprived of their foundations of nuclear development and giving up undeclared programs of their own accord," North Korean state-run media has argued, concluding that "[h]istory proves that powerful nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasure sword for frustrating outsiders' aggression."
Kim meets with President Trump in Vietnam this week for their second summit to negotiate denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula.