Any day that John Bolton gets fired is a good day. Having said that, he clashed with the president primarily over things than any sane person would object to, like being best pals with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, and inviting the Taliban to Camp David. For his part, Trump correctly assessed that his National Security Adviser is a “warmonger” and joked about all the countries he wants to invade. They’re right about each other and wrong about every single other thing. And they don’t even agree about whether Bolton was fired or resigned.
The president churns through staff at an impressive rate, but in this case I am happy to see Bolton go. There was a decent chance he would have blown up the world if he continued in the position and Trump ever decided to listen to him.
It seems the breaking point came over our policies towards Afghanistan and Iran, and while the president’s inclinations in both places are based on the spiders in his brain, he is at least interested in dialogue and long-term peace which are both anathema to Mr. Bolton.
When it comes to Trump and Bolton, it’s hard to tell which one this more accurately describes: “your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots!” We’re just fortunate that only one of them is still in a position of authority.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible for things to ever improve during the Era of Trump so this development just means that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will have more influence. He’s also a dangerous ideologue and probably giving worse advice than Bolton provided on at least fifty percent of the topics under discussion in the administration’s foreign policy councils.
I would dearly like for us to clear out of Afghanistan, but it doesn’t seem like Bolton’s departure is going to help here either, primarily because Trump blew up his horribly flawed peace negotiations last week and probably will have difficulty reviving them.
It’s probably best if no major decisions are made at all on foreign policy until after Trump leaves office, and maybe things will turn out well here in that respect since Trump will have some lag in finding a new National Security Adviser. He probably will hire the first person to appear on Fox News to praise his sacking of Bolton, and since the Senate doesn’t have to confirm this position, no one can stop him. Or maybe he’ll decide he doesn’t need anyone in the position at all or that some coffee boy for Jared Kushner is a good fit for the job. Whatever is most irresponsible and ludicrous is probably what will happen.
Still, there is nothing wrong with taking a moment to celebrate the humiliation of John Bolton because fuck that guy.
I’ll wager that von Bolton’s refusal to bless the failing North Korea bromance and counsel against Putin ass-kissing were far worse marks against him in the mind of the infallible Der Trumper than any of Bolton’s incessant warmongering, which Trumper himself readily engages in, rhetorically if not in practice (“I could end [Conflict X] tomorrow”, etc). For the incompetent, juvenile Trumper to have his idiot ideas formally challenged was simply intolerable. Hence the “John and I disagreed on many things” tweetsplanation. The preening sycophant Pompous-eo, the Grand Vizier of the hollowed out shell of State, on the other hand, understands that a successful National Trumpalist must always be “working towards the Fuhrer”. In this he and the criminal anti-AG Barr are one.
Presumably this firing cleanses the appallingly dangerous crank von Bolton from the taint of having served National Trumpalism and immunizes him for future “service” when our failed state “elects” the next “conservative” prez after Trumper. But it’s hard to see how this firing changes a single existing hardline Trumpite stance on anything. It just means that only the most craven sycophants need apply. So much for “I’ve got the best generals!”