Reprinted with permission from Alternet
Newly ousted National Security Adviser John Bolton has already begun disparaging his former boss, President Donald Trump, according to a new report from Politico.
The outlet revealed details of Bolton’s comments at a private lunch Wednesday in Manhattan hosted by the conservative Gatestone Institute.
Unsurprisingly, the report revealed that Bolton, a notorious warmonger, was at odds with the president over his recent effort to bring the Taliban to Camp David to negotiate a drawdown of troops in Afghanistan. He also reportedly said that Trump’s policy toward Iran and North Korea was “doomed to failure.”
Few observers take Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea seriously — despite three meetings with dictator Kim Jong-un, there’s been no progress toward denuclearization, and the regime continues to test missiles. All that has happened is Trump has given Kim a series of public relations victories.
And while Bolton is broadly right about Trump’s failures with Iran, though, he gets the diagnosis wrong. Trump’s failure stems from his decision to pull out of the deal reached by the Obama administration that limited the Islamic Republic’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. By breaking the American end of the bargain, Trump has reinvigorated tensions with Iran. Bolton sees Trump as having failed by declining to retaliate earlier in the summer when Iran shot down an American drone, but the president likely made the right call then — such an attack could have quickly escalated and spiraled out of control.
The odd thing is, however, that the tensions between Bolton and Trump were predictable back in 2018 when the White House brought him on as the new national security adviser. It was obvious for anyone watching that the pair would inevitably clash. It was similarly predictable that, as soon as Trump booted Bolton unceremoniously, the former national security adviser would begin badmouthing his former boss.
