A Splendid Little War Could End Trump’s Presidency, by Jim Jatras.

Here’s an interesting hypothetical.

Suppose the Trump Administration’s game of chicken with Pyongyang goes wrong. Suppose it results in the vaporization of a goodly portion of Seoul’s 10 million-plus population, not to mention almost all of the 28 thousand or so American troops in South Korea.

It’s not an unrealistic scenario. Sure, there are those who say it can’t happen, that common sense will prevail—as though common sense were a plentiful commodity. But pretty much every gaming out of “kinetic military action” (to use the buzzword du jour) in Korea leads to a grim outcome.

Never mind the human cost for a moment, or the devastating reprisal that would be visited on millions of North Koreans, almost all of them hapless victims. Ask: What would be the impact on Donald Trump’s political fortunes? Would he be impeached for what would be a self-inflicted catastrophe of world historical proportions?

Even if he remained in office, would he be rendered nothing more than a pathetic, disgraced placeholder? Say goodbye to the Mexican wall, to restructured trade ties, to the whole MAGA agenda.

Why is it hard to shake the sense that some of those egging on Trump’s newfound bellicosity in Korea and elsewhere would thrilled with such a development? …

Perhaps more is at work than just flipping Trump to the neocon team, the way George W. Bush, who had promised a more “humble” foreign policy, was converted after 9/11. Can the Deep State and the MSM really rest easy with Trump in the White House? Goading and cheering him into a senseless war maybe provide a definitive solution to the Trump problem.

hat-tip Stephen Neil