Tom Lehrer performing at UCLA's Royce Hall, January 1960. Wikicommons/ Associated Students, University of California, Los Angeles . Some rights reserved.
The previous column in this series discussed the prospects for the meeting in Singapore on 12 June between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. Even before the two leaders had shaken hands, some of the United States president's loyal supporters were promoting him for a Nobel peace award. With a touch more scepticism, the column took the view that the great dealmaker might prove not to be in control of the event, perhaps even taken for a ride by his much younger interlocutor (see "Kim Jong-un to Trump: bring it on", 7 June 2018).
It noted the skill with which the North Koreans had already reached out to other world leaders, for example by agreeing to meet Vladimir Putin (who has invited Chairman Kim to Moscow in September) and by extending a hand to his ally Bashar al-Assad. The latter action really did seem an in-your-face insult, given Washington’s problems with the Syrian leader and his Iranian backers, yet the Sentosa summit went ahead regardless.
