Haley: UN Out of Options on North Korea

Says She Is 'Perfectly Happy' With Having Pentagon Attack North Korea

US Ambassador Nikki Haley declared the UN Security Council to have “run out of options” for dealing with the “North Korea problem,” in comments made during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union show. She talked up a shift to unilateral US military options.

Nikki Haley

Haley insisted that the US has “a whole lot of military options on the table,” and that President Trump’s threat to give North Korea “fire and fury” was not an empty threat. She went on to say that if the US uses any military options “North Korea will be destroyed. And we all know that. And none of us want that.”

Despite saying she didn’t want that in this segment of her comments, the ambassador also said in the course of her comments she is “perfectly happy” to see the North Korea issued referred to the Pentagon to be solved by Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Since early spring, US officials have been threatening military action against North Korea multiple times a week. North Korean officials say their development of missiles is focused on finding an equilibrium at which it is no longer possible for the US to attack without risking a disastrous retaliation. Though many would argue the millions who would be killed in a war now would be enough of a deterrent, US officials continue to insist that the military option is a realistic one.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.