JOHN KIRIAKOU: Bolton's Long Goodbye
June 12, 2019
John Bolton's days as national security advisor are apparently numbered-for
reasons that have all played out in the press, says John Kiriakou.
By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium News
Everybody in America knows that Donald Trump places a premium on what he
considers to be "loyalty." You're either with him or against him. The White
House staff has been a revolving door from virtually the start of his
administration. It's not unusual for aides to last mere weeks or months,
only to then be thrown out on the street.
Trump then inevitably says something about "loyalty."
The situation isn't unique to just the White House political and domestic
policy staff. It is just as pervasive at the National Security Council.
Nobody is sacred. Remember, you're either with him or against him. Now it's
John Bolton's turn to find himself in a corner. I believe that his days as
national security advisor are numbered-for reasons that have all played out
in the press.
I'm one of those people-not at all unique in Washington-who has contacts and
friends all over the political spectrum, including in the Trump
Administration. After work and over drinks, they like to vent. What they are
telling me privately is what other Washington insiders are telling the
conservative press. The White House, and especially the National Security
Council, are in disarray. And Bolton will soon be fired.
Bolton-Centric
Bolton: On the way out?
The right-wing Washington Examiner reported this week that Bolton
acknowledged these reports, but in a back-handed way. He said in a Wall
Street Journal podcast that he believes five countries are spreading "lies
about dysfunction in the Trump administration." Those countries are North
Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and China. That's laughable.
What Bolton is saying is that there is a vast and incredibly
well-coordinated international conspiracy that includes some of the most
important countries in the world, the main purpose of which is to embarrass
him. That sounds perfectly rational, right?
Of course, a more rational person might conclude that Bolton has done a
terrible job, that the people around him have done a terrible job, that he
has aired his disagreements with Trump in the media, and that the President
is angry about it. That's the more likely scenario.
Here's what my friends are saying. Trump is concerned, like any president is
near the end of his term, about his legacy. He said during the campaign that
he wanted to be the president who pulled the country out of its two longest
wars. He wanted to declare victory and bring the troops back from
Afghanistan and Iraq. He hasn't done that, largely at the insistence of
Bolton. Here we are three years later and we're still stuck in both of those
countries.
Second, my friends say that Trump wants to end U.S. involvement in the Yemen
war, but that Bolton has been insistent that the only way to guarantee the
closeness of the U.S. relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates is to keep providing those countries with weapons, aerial refueling
planes, and intelligence support.
Obsessed With Iran
That would explain the reason why the White House did not seek to block the
recent Congressional vote on Yemen support. Bolton likely talked Trump into
vetoing the resolution. Or he talked the Saudis into talking Trump into it.
Still, at least in internal deliberations, Trump has said that he simply
doesn't see a national security reason to keep the war going. The U.S. gets
nothing out of it.
Third, the mainstream media has accused Bolton of being the reason behind
the failure of Trump's second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Bolton towed a hard line, so much so that the North Korean media called him
a "war monger" and a "human defect" once the summit ended.
This week Trump told reporters gathered on the White House south lawn that
Kim had "kept his word" on nuclear and missile testing. This was a direct
contradiction of Bolton, who had said just hours earlier that the North
Koreans had reneged on their commitments to the U.S. Trump said simply, "My
people think there could have been a violation. I view it differently."
Protest against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman outside Saudi-US CEO Forum
in New York , March 27, 2018 (Ben Norton)
Most importantly, Bolton has been famous for decades for his irrationally
hard line on Iran. He has made no secret of his desire to bomb Iran into the
stone age, to smash and overthrow its government, and to let the chips fall
where they may. The policy makes literally no sense.
Iran is a country of 80 million people. It has an active and well-trained
global intelligence service. It has a robust navy with highly-specialized
"swift boats" that are active in the Persian Gulf. And it controls the vital
Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil and 33 percent
of its liquified natural gas flows.
Trump said just a week ago that he was willing to begin talks with the
Iranians "with no preconditions." This was a major softening of U.S. policy
toward Iran and it immediately drew Bolton's ire. Indeed, The New York Times
pointed out that the policy directly "overruled a longtime goal of (Trump's)
national security advisor."
All of this has made Trump angry. He's constantly being one-upped by one of
the Washington swamp monsters he promised to rid the city of. He finally
seems to have come to realize that even establishment Republicans dislike
and distrust John Bolton. And now he understands why.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump's chief of staff, has very quietly and discreetly begun
informal meetings with a list of a half-dozen possible replacements for
Bolton. Let's hope he finds one that he and Trump both like sooner, rather
than later.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage
Act-a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
