Trump talks to UN Security Counsel and sets meeting with US Senate over Korea options

streiff:

Back when you were in junior high, it was never a good thing when your parents, and your teachers, and your principal, and the guidance counselor, and maybe a social worker, and your priest and couple of cops all got together to discuss you. Rarely did anything good come of those sessions.

Via Reuters:

Top Trump administration officials will hold a rare briefing on Wednesday at the White House for the entire U.S. Senate on the situation in North Korea, senior Senate aides said on Monday.

All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the aides said.

While top administration officials routinely travel to Capitol Hill to address members of Congress on foreign policy and national security matters, it is unusual for the entire 100-member Senate to go to such an event at the White House, and for those four top officials to be involved.

The entire context must be considered when evaluating this meeting.

There are three US carriers off Korea. The USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group has finally arrived. The USS Nimitz finished certification trials a week ago and should be in waters near Korea by now. The USS Ronald Reagan is home-ported at Yokosuka, Japan. North Korea is playing will-he-won’t-he with a new nuclear test. All indications are that they have a weapon staged in the test area and are ready to pop it when they decide to. This morning President Trump hosted the UN Security Council ambassadors at a meeting in Washington, DC. North Korea was the main subject and Trump was clear that he was going to press for additional sanctions against that country.
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The cooperation mentioned in this tweet refers to cooperation between US and Chinese military forces. If you run the text through Google Translate you find Xi wants to “solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula as soon as possible and realize the denuclearization of the peninsula.”
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If China is an ally in operations against North Korea, the Norks are doomed.  They will probably still cause some damage, but the ultimate end will find them defeated.  Trump is also getting the UN involved since it, like the US, is still technically at war with North Korea because the hostilities ended with a cease-fire agreement and not a treaty.

Noth Korean bombast should also make it easier for Trump to get a political consensus about his response.