Gen X Chronicle brings you the latest installment of Today in Trump Land, where we chronicle the doings, comings and goings of the Trump Administration. I say comings and goings because no other American Presidential administration has had such a high rate of turnover as the current one. It would seem that as Special Counsel Robert Mueller closes in on Trump’s Russia ties, the canaries really are fleeing the coal mine.
So here we go.
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Thursday, March 22nd. So it’s McMaster today. The news came out this afternoon that President Trump had fired his National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, and replaced him with former Bush Administration official and Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton.
To which I say: Yikes! I mean don’t get me wrong, McMaster was no dove, and he took a particularly hard line on North Korea, for one. But he was still seen as a moderating influence on the President, someone who tried to reign in Trump’s 12-year old machismo from affecting major foreign policy decisions.
So on Iran, McMaster had advocated diplomacy over force. On Afghanistan, he had clashed with the President as well. Perhaps most importantly, he laid blame for the 2016 election meddling squarely at the foot of Russia.
So Trump decided he had had enough of McMaster today, and he gave him his walking papers. I’m not fan or McMaster, but he seemed like a rational, thoughtful, adult policy adviser.
And who has Trump brought in to replace him? John R. Bolton, one of the champions of President George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, who used his platform as US Ambassador to the United Nations to continuously criticize the agency and call for the use of greater force and a more “muscular” foreign policy by the United States around the world.
Indeed, The Economist called Bolton’s appointment as US Ambassador to the UN “the most controversial ambassador ever sent by America to the United Nations.” Bolton is currently on record as being in favor of using force against Iran and North Korea, and of tearing up the Iran nuclear deal. He’s a warhawk, is what he is, pure and simple.
We’ve seen his kind before in US foreign policy making circles, from Henry Clay to John Calhoun to Henry Kissinger to John Negroponte and now Bolton. These men all believe in the philosophy of shoot first, ask questions later. Which is the worst possible message to send to the rest of the world. It reinforces other nations’ views of America as a cowboy, Wild West nation that will use its raw power to get what it wants, and that will kill whoever stands in the way. And in all honesty, there’s some truth to that, there really is.
So I’m no fan of Bolton, to say the least.
But that wasn’t the end of the shake-up in Trump Land today. John Dowd, the head of Trump’s legal defense team for the Russia investigation, resigned today. Dowd was most recently negotiating the terms of a potential Trump interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Dowd is widely respected in legal and political circles. He’s also the author of The Dowd Report, a painstaking and meticulous 1989 documented case against Pete Rose of Major League Baseball. The report accused rose of gambling on baseball when he was a player and manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Rose was banned from baseball for life. It’s considered a landmark report in sports history and an example of excellent investigative work by Dowd.
So Dowd is out. All I really know about him is the public record stuff, but he seemed like a respectable dude. Dowd reportedly broke with Trump over whether the President should agree to an interview with Mueller. Dowd viewed an interview as too risky, but Trump said he wanted to “clear his name.”
Dowd’s resignation also comes just days after Trump brought on a new key attorney, Joe diGenova, who has asserted repeatedly on Fox News that the FBI and the Justice Department framed Mr. Trump.
So he seems like another wild card.
All in all, it was an eventful day in Trump Land. While I’m worried about diGenova’s conspiracy theories as a key member of Trump’s’ legal team, the man who really worries me is John R. Bolton. Because I believe Bolton won’t hesitate to start a war with Iran or North Korea, or whichever other nation offends his adolescent sensibility.
When you combine Bolton as National Security Adviser with Mike Pompeo at the State Department, you’ve got a freaking war party ready to raid the world and pillage nation states at will.
That would be disastrous for America, and for the international community. The last thing we need is another American engagement in a foreign war. Because we’ve had enough wars since 9/11.
Let’s hope Bolton’s hawkish voice can somehow be drowned out by more moderate voices. Or maybe, just maybe, Trump will tire of him quickly and move on to the next National Security Adviser. Either option works, as long as we can neutralize Bolton.
In the meantime, pray for American foreign policy. Just pray.
