Trump Dented Iran's Nuclear Ambitions. Should Kim Jong Un Fret?

Analysts say Pyongyang will not back down and has options for counter attacks

- Chang May Choon

If North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was watching TV on June 22, details of the US strike on Iran might have sent a chill down his spine. And, for a moment, he might have wondered: Am I next?

Operation Midnight Hammer aimed to "severely degrade Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure", according to General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pentagon briefing on June 22 following the strikes, and show off America's unparalleled military prowess.

But it might have also sent a veiled message to North Korea: stop rejecting US President Donald Trump's "love letters" and return to dialogue, or face the same fate.

It has been seven years since the first historic Trump-Kim summit was held in Singapore in 2018. I was in Seoul as The Straits Times' South Korea Correspondent during the pre-summit days of "fire and fury", when tensions boiled over, with both sides hurling insults at each other. "Dotard", "rocket man" — do these words ring a bell?

Mr Trump had then demonstrated his masterful showmanship at raising the stakes to the highest before going in for the kill. He kept the world glued to the screen as he successfully courted Mr Kim with a concoction of "love letters", lavish praises, and even bromance.

But the top-down diplomacy yielded just three meetings during Mr Trump's first term in office, none moving the needle closer towards North Korea's denuclearisation other than a claimed destruction of one nuclear test site.

As dialogue stalled in the years that followed, North Korea continued to build its nuclear arsenal and is now believed to own about 50 nuclear warheads and multiple missiles, including long-range ones capable of striking the US mainland.

Would the drama now unfolding in Iran, as its long-time friends Russia and China watch, scare North Korea? Not likely, because the regime knows it has the upper hand in a confrontation with the United States.