North Korea Nuclear Weapons Issue is All President Reagan’s Fault?

Amazingly a Washington Post writer is declaring the North Korean nuclear crisis as being former President Reagan’s fault:

Over the past few days, the United States and North Korea have become locked in nuclear brinkmanship. After North Korea declared that its ballistic missiles could hit anywhere in the United States, President Trump vowed that continued North Korean provocations would be “met with fire and fury and — frankly — power.” North Korea responded by threatening to attack the tiny island of Guam, a U.S. territory.

But it was another tiny island that set the United States and North Korea down this path. Few Americans will recall the 1983 invasion of a small Caribbean nation thousands of miles from North Korea. But in fact, this conflict set the stage for the nuclear standoff today. It intensified the animosity between the two countries, sending North Korea on a quest for nuclear weapons to combat what it saw as a looming U.S. threat.

In October 1983, the United States invaded Grenada. The Kim family regime that controls North Korea saw this invasion as an early warning sign: If the United States could perceive even a small spice island as a threat, so too could it eventually train its sights on North Korea. Without an effective deterrent, any regime perceived as a threat would be little match for American military might.  [Washington Post]

You can read the rest at the link, but comparing Grenada to North Korea is completely apples and oranges.  Does anyone think the US would have invaded Grenada if there was a massive artillery and WMD threat that could kill millions to include large numbers of US troops and American expats?  That has the been reality for decades with North Korea’s strategic military advantage with Seoul within convention artillery range.  This fact has kept American military action against North Korea in check despite numerous deadly provocations over the decades.

If anything is driving Kim Jong-un to develop his missile and nuclear programs it is what he saw happen to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi under the last two Presidents, not Reagan.  Kim Jong-un probably cannot even find Grenada on a map.