EDITORIAL - US will rue not uniting behind Trump vs Kim

US President Donald Trump, speaking before the National Assembly of South Korea, once again warned North Korea of the fatal consequences of its provocations, threatening the regime of Kim Jong Un with destruction if it continues on the dark path it is following. While the speech hewed closely to the same track the president has chosen in responding to the dictator, it was fresh and new in its well-crafted and precise deliberateness.

Trump is not a great speaker. Compared to Bill Clinton, Trump is in Kindergarten. That is why most, if not all, of his speeches about North Korea cause a lot of stress among people. For while you may guardedly applaud him for at least taking on Kim where his predecessor Barack Obama failed, prior Trump speeches were always fine examples of reckless brinkmanship.

There was always a tense waiting period for what the North Korean response would be to every Trump speech in the past. Will Kim test another missile? Will he detonate another nuclear bomb in some unknown underground test facility? Or will the North Korean leader get real and launch a preemptive attack on some reachable US territory or ally?

But the South Korean speech was different. For one, the decibels were noticeably low, perhaps in deference to South Korea, which will likely be one of the first to be hit in case Kim goes berserk. You have to watch replays of the speech to believe it. Trump was cool, calm and deliberate. And while it was few on specifics as always, the precise choice of words could not have driven the message more clearly than he did in Seoul Wednesday.

By Trump standards, it was a great speech. Even CNN might be compelled to give him that. But then again it might not, as won't the rest of the anti-Trump parade, which is really unfortunate because given the very real threat posed by Kim and North Korea, one would have expected every American to rally behind their president. Unfortunately, they don't. Kim does not have that problem. The North Koreans will die for him. That is what gives him the bravado.

Americans do not see that it will be Trump who will be leading the charge in case Kim cracks and screws up. It will not be Hillary Clinton. It most certainly will not be Anderson Cooper. Angela Merkel and Theresa May will not be embroiled in Asia. Rodrigo Duterte may want to join the melee, but he has a toothbrush only. In short, it will just be Trump and that's it. Given the very real challenges ahead, America should start facing up to the fact that it needs to be united to survive.