Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- April 5, 2017

Anna Fifield, Washington Post: Will North Korea fire a missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland? Probably.

SEOUL - North Korea has made no secret of its desire to build an inter-continental ballistic missile, or ICBM, capable of reaching the continental United States.

In his New Year’s Day address, Kim Jong Un said that North Korea had “entered the final stage of preparation for a test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.” In response, President Trump tweeted: “It won’t happen!”

North Korea has quite a track record when it comes to making bold threats it can’t deliver on, but many analysts take Pyongyang at its word.

“They want a long-range missile with a warhead on it,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a senior non-proliferation adviser in the Obama administration who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “We should be worried about the direction that things are going in.”

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- April 5, 2017

US concessions on Korean peninsula could go a long way -- John Barry Kotch, South China Morning Post

How Trump can get Xi to say 'Yes' on North Korea -- Lori Esposito Murray, Defense News

Towards High Noon in U.S.-China Relations -- Pravin R. Jethwa, RCD

Who Will Retake Raqqa? -- Jamie Dettmer, VOA

Doing Nothing Is Better Than Acting: The Trump administration is making a smart foreign policy decision not to intervene in Syria after the recent chemical attack. -- Trevor Thrall, US News and World Report

Inaction over Syria has exacted a terrible price -- Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian

The worrying lessons of the Syria chemical attack -- Peter Apps, Reuters

How Is Syria Still Using Chemical Weapons? -- Krishnadev Calamur, The Atlantic

Syria chemical 'attack': What now? -- Jonathan Marcus, BBC

Yemen is fast becoming a global, not regional, problem -- Adam Baron, European Council on Foreign Affairs

Jacob Zuma: his exit might be anything but dignified -- Jason Burke, The Guardian

Why Modi Isn't Another Putin or Trump -- Mihir Sharma, Bloomberg

Corruption, Terrorism, and Russia’s Future -- Michal Romanowski, RCW

Alexei Navalny Shakes Up a Slumbering Russia -- Christian Esch, Spiegel Online

Reality Check: European Parliament's 'red lines' on Brexit -- BBC

In the Brexit Divorce, Who Takes Custody of Little Gibraltar? -- Nico Hines and Narbie Latza Nadeau, Daily Beast

Are Mexico’s Oil Reserves Almost Depleted? -- Zero Hedge