9/10/19
I did not welcome John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser. But now that he has been fired (or has resigned), I am more ambivalent about his departure than I had expected. In some ways he has been as bad as I feared, but in other ways he has been an important check on an impetuous president. If his replacement is a yes-man (or woman), the result could actually be worse. When Bolton’s appointment was announced in March 2018, I described him in The Post as a “wild man” with legendary “antipathy toward international treaties and organizations,” a lack of “the kind of interpersonal skills” that a national security adviser needs “to coordinate all of the defense and foreign-policy agencies,” and a worrisome predilection for preemptive wars against Iran and North Korea. I was right to worry that the foreign policy process would become more “chaotic” under Bolton. He disdained attempts by his predecessor, H.R. McMaster, to consult with other agencies. Bolton froze other officials out of the process in the hope that he alone could shape President Trump’s decision-making. A long profile in the Atlantic noted: “If the NSC under McMaster was a consultative body, under Bolton it has become the opposite.” How ironic, then, that Bolton — who began his tenure by excluding bureaucratic rivals — wound up being excluded himself from decision-making about Afghan peace negotiations. His skepticism of a deal was said to have “irritated” Trump. But here’s the thing: Much as I disagree with Bolton on many issues, he was right to be wary of a deal that would have led to U.S. troop withdrawal in return for empty promises of good behavior from the Taliban.
Bolton was also right to be skeptical about peace talks with North Korea. Unlike Trump, he never fell in love with North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un. Bolton played a more destabilizing and dangerous role when it came to Iran. Trump seemed to expect that U.S. pressure would cause Iran to come back to the table to negotiate an even more restrictive agreement. But instead of giving in, Iran has struck back. Bolton led Trump into a strategic dead end with no obvious way out save a resurrection of the nuclear accord or a war with Iran. The latter option loomed menacingly close in June after Iran shot down a U.S. drone. Nor did Bolton’s advice produce the quick and easy win that Trump unreasonably expected in Venezuela. Bolton made many mistakes — just as his critics had expected — but he is not the real reason that U.S. foreign policy has been so erratic and unsuccessful over the past 17 months. If Trump wants to find the real culprit for his failed foreign policy, he should look in the mirror. Not even a president with far more acumen than Trump could possibly formulate and execute a successful foreign policy amid such incessant staff turnover — and such abrupt shifts of direction.
