Is John Bolton a threat to world peace?
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Donald Trump could hardly have chosen a worse person to be his new national security adviser than John Bolton, said The Observer. An advocate of military intervention and of forcible regime change in Iran and North Korea, Bolton is “a truly dangerous man”. Only last month he argued it would be perfectly legitimate for the US to launch a first strike against Pyongyang – so don’t expect any joy from Trump’s proposed summit with Kim Jong Un. Bolton’s first priority, though, is likely to be undoing the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions on Tehran, a move that could trigger “a chain reaction of perilous consequences” across the Middle East. He also has a history of disrespecting America’s allies and the UN. It all “bodes ill for the world at large”.
Bolton’s appointment is being treated as “a newly discovered postscript to the Book of Revelation”, said Stephen Daisley in The Spectator, which, given his “tetchy” rhetoric and belief that America should ruthlessly pursue its own interests, isn’t that surprising. Yet it could prove one of Trump’s more sensible decisions: he has effectively planted a sign on the White House lawn saying, “Don’t mess with the US”. And far from being the ignoramus that liberals would have us believe, Bolton is a lawyerly man with an encyclopaedic grasp of threats to US security. Indeed, he has a more “coherent and anchored” philosophy than most of his critics, said Sohrab Ahmari in Commentary. He’s perfectly respectful of international law – he just thinks defending America is more important than multilateralism. If that means backing “distasteful” strongmen like Egypt’s President Sisi, so be it. His vision may be unsentimental, but we live in a tragic world.
It’s about to get more tragic, said Colum Lynch and Elias Groll in Foreign Policy. This is a man who has argued that international treaties are not legally binding; who supported an Iranian opposition group, Mujahideen-e Khalq, which the State Department classified as a terrorist organisation; who is prepared to provoke China by stationing US troops in Taiwan. No wonder experts fear the US is “on a path towards multiple conflicts”. Of course, it’s the president who ultimately makes the decisions, not his advisers, said Edward Luce in the FT. But whereas Bolton’s predecessor, H.R. Mcmaster, acted as a restraint on Trump, Bolton will encourage his boss’s most belligerent instincts. This is a blow for diplomacy both within the White House and among the international community: “Pax Americana is growing weaker by the day.”