Sometimes it takes an outsider, unburdened by the stifling conventions and preconceptions that impede the practice of diplomacy, to see the obvious. Trump is that outsider. Sometimes Trump's distance from diplomacy's precepts allows him to see its hobgoblins as they are. That was the case when his administration threw away custom by deciding again to consign North Korea to the list of state terror sponsors, to institute a renewed sanctions regime targeting Iran, and to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The risks that professional diplomats feared would result from these maneuvers never materialized, and only a risk-prone executive could have achieved these successes. Trump's particular facility is not without its dangers. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is conventional for a reason. Donald Trump's decision to sit down with North Korea's Kim Jong-un at Pyongyang's request, for example, is fraught with more potential for risk than reward.
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