On Friday, White House briefing guests included U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, who both popped in to discuss North Korea. This gathering takes place after the ever-hostile regime of Kim Jong-un spent days re-upping an already accelerating set of actions, capped off by another flyover missile aimed in Japan’s direction. This followed North Korea’s wildest threat yet — to sink Japan with a nuke and reduce the U.S. to “ashes and darkness.”
While some on Twitter noted that Haley looked much like an “inter-galactic war” leader, she was all business while claiming that new U.N. sanctions have “strangled [North Korea’s] situation at this point.” However, Haley cautioned that the effects of these sanctions may not be apparent to outsiders for some time, so the U.S. must stay vigilant:
“What we are seeing is they continue to be provocative, they continue to be reckless. And at that point there is not a whole lot the security council is going to be able to do from here when you have cut 90% of the trade and 30% of the oil. So, having said that, I have no problem with kicking it to [Defense Secretary James] Mattis because I think he has plenty of options.”
McMaster then stepped up to confirm that the possible “military option” spoken of by General Mattis a few weeks ago is truly on the table:
“For those who have said, and been commenting about a lack of an military option, there is a military option. Now it is not what we would prefer to do.“
North Korea tends to conduct missile and nuke tests at whim, often on the weekend, so god only knows what the next few days shall bring from Pyongyang. You can watch McMaster’s portion of the briefing below.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on North Korea: “There is a military option,” but “it’s not what we’d prefer to do” pic.twitter.com/BXqHYRVykX
— CNN (@CNN) September 15, 2017
(Via CNN)