CIA says North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is not crazy, but ‘very rational’
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In contrast to President Trump’s assertion that Kim Jong-un is a “madman,” an influential CIA official said Wednesday that the North Korean dictator is actually a “very rational actor” who doesn’t want a war with the United States.
“The last person who wants conflict on the [Korean Peninsula] is Kim Jong-un,” said Yong Suk Lee, the deputy assistant director of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center — a special outfit the agency created in May to address the increased nuclear and ballistic missile threat from Pyongyang.
“We have a tendency in this country and everywhere else to kind of underestimate the conservatism that runs in these authoritarian regimes, and it’s probably the greatest circuit breaker in any kind of conflict,” he said, adding that all “bluster and rhetoric aside,” Mr. Kim has “no interest in going toe to toe” with the U.S. military and its allies.
It just wouldn’t be “conducive to his longevity,” or to his power over the elusive community of military and other elites that keep the regime alive in Pyongyang, Mr. Lee said. “North Korean elites are not interested in getting their faces on a deck of cards and being chased after by JSOC.”
The CIA official chuckled as he made the comment in reference to the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command.
By Guy Taylor - The Washington Times
