I don't like the Bolton hiring. However, if Trump were set on war, why not hire Bolton from day one? Let's remember, too, that NK has been allowed to continue to develop nuclear capabilities for years and now that they either have or are close to a deliverable weapon, it falls on Trump to do something about it. I find it interesting that the same people who have said that Trump would get us in a war are also criticizing the decision to meet Kim Jung Un as elevating him way above his level of importance. That might be true in the short term but if it diffuses the situation, who cares? I'm thinking that the same overture, if made by Obama, would have been gushed over as statesman-like. It seems that Trump can't win with some people no matter what approach he takes.
Let's get the facts straight first.
*Reagan invades the great threat to the west called Grenada, 1983 and was in office in 1986 when plutonium was first produced in a North Korean reactor. They continued their program under President George H.W. Bush, producing enough plutonium to make 1–2 bombs. Where was the drumbeat for war ?
(BTW, Iran saw what happened to Iraq who didn't have nukes and what didn't happen to N. Korea...because they did)
*Clinton's deal was two light-water reactors, extremely difficult if even possible to create fuel for nukes, In exchange, NK dropped it nuke fuel enrichment program. The NK's did. This was under 'dad' not KJU.
*Geo. W. Bush came in and that the deal amounted appeasement. Then Bush with a very doubtful and unspecified claim that NK violated the agreement. Bush admin. didn’t like the concept of the deal itself. Giving things to the North Koreans to get them to do things we wanted was rewarding misbehavior. Might they have become a nuclear power anyway? Maybe. But it seems very hard to argue that they would have gotten there as quickly as they did or would even be there today if the US had continued with the quite minor amounts of aid the Agreed Framework required. Bush abrogated the Clinton deal. NK again starts again to enrich plutonium.
*Yes, Obama's agreement sent starving people food. So did others. Bush even let the NKs off after being caught red-handed with counterfeiting $150 million. But Obama did no less and arguably less damage than any of his predecessors.
BTW, when Obama offered to discuss meeting KJU, the right and repub said he was appeasing NK, being weak and manipulated. Now Trump offers the same, he's being a forward thinking statesman. (recall that on one TV address, Obama for the right, wore the wrong colored suit...can you imagine ?)
Bolton under W, wanted war with Iran, Bush consulted his other advisers and the CFR who all told him, not yet, we'll get back to you.
So it is the right since Reagan (1980) that has been the quickest to seek war as a solution to almost everything. (the modern right of today, need to pump up and pound their chests on these matters, to appear tough) Now of course, except any economic war, which messes with these risk-averse, capitalists...and their profits.
Oh and the minds of the right...the left is always wrong no matter what [it] does...all of the time. The right's concerns are power and profits by any means whatsoever, the country be damned.