Donald Trump ousts top adviser John Bolton: 'I disagreed strongly with him'
Donald Trump has fired his national security adviser, John Bolton, in a pair of tweets in which he laid bare searing internal divisions within his inner circle, saying he had “disagreed strongly” with his top aide.
The departure of such a resolute hawk raises the possibility that Trump’s foreign policy could now make a dovish turn in the run up to next year’s elections, in particular with respect to Iran.
The president’s firing of his third national security adviser in as many years appears to have caught even the White House by surprise. The explosive tweets were posted barely an hour after it was announced that Bolton would be appearing at a press conference alongside the secretaries of state and treasury.
Bolton himself added to the confusion, commenting minutes after his public dismissal that he had offered to resign on Monday night but that Trump had replied: “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
Bolton continued to press his case that he had resigned rather than being fired. He sent out a battery of texts including to Fox News presenters on air as well as the Washington Post, protesting: “I resigned, having offered to do so last night.”
Bolton’s resignation letter was terse in the extreme.
“I hereby resign, effective immediately, as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to serve our country,” the two-line note said.
The sacking-cum-resignation of the lavishly mustachioed Bolton, an ultrahawk on foreign policy who under George Bush was a key architect of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, brings to a head mounting tensions within Trump’s top team of national security and foreign policy strategists.
His removal had been a long time coming, with Trump making little effort to disguise his dissatisfaction over many months.
According to the New York Times, Bolton had refused to appear on television talk shows on 25 August after the G7 summit in Biarritz so he did not have defend the president’s views on Russia
The two men agreed on some issues, like scrapping multilateral agreements such as the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and tearing up the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia.
But Trump’s maverick approach to dealing with tough men and adversaries, in which he has emphasized a willingness to deal directly with America’s traditional enemies, such as Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong-un in North Korea – and most recently the Taliban in Afghanistan – was increasingly at odds with Bolton’s hardline belief that US military might is right.
Bolton was also reported to have a testy relationship with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. The two officials are said to have been at loggerheads for months to the extent that in recent days they were not speaking other than at official engagements.
“There were definitely places that Ambassador Bolton and I had different views about how we should proceed,” Pompeo said yesterday. Asked if he had been taken unawares by the development, the secretary of state smiled and said: “I’m never surprised.”
Bolton also appears to have alienated Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, for his refusal to promote presidential policies he did not agree with.
“It was in Bolton’s nature to run an imperial NSC [national security council] but he stepped on the toes of too many people,” said Mark Groombridge, who worked for Bolton for a decade. “He got into the crosshairs of Pompeo and Mulvaney, who saw Bolton as a liability for the 2020 election. War on every front was not what Trump ran on.”
Trump was unusually candid about the rift within his own inner team. In the tweets he posted on Tuesday announcing Bolton’s departure he wrote: “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning.”
Trump said he would announce his pick for his fourth national security adviser next week, and early speculation on candidates pointed to the ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, Iran envoy Brian Hook and Robert Blair, an aide to Mulvaney.
An adviser to Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said Bolton’s departure underlined the failure of Washington’s “maximum pressure strategy” against Iran.
“The marginalisation and subsequent elimination of Bolton is not an accident but a decisive sign of the failure of the US maximum pressure strategy in the face of the constructive resistance of Iran,” Hesameddin Ashena tweeted.
Bolton’s departure could open the way to fresh diplomacy with Iran. Trump has repeatedly said he is prepared to meet Rouhani, at the urging of France’s president, Emmanuel Macron.
Asked on Tuesday if he could foresee such a meeting at the UN general assembly later this month, Pompeo replied: “Sure.”
Commentators interpreted the news as further evidence of chaos and confusion within Trump’s White House, but there were also loud sighs of relief from those who were delighted to see such a hawkish influence excised from the heart of government.
Elizabeth Warren, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, agreed, saying: “The American people are better off with John Bolton out of the White House.”
Her rival, Bernie Sanders tweeted: “A symptom of the problem is gone. The root cause of authoritarianism remains.”
The National Iranian American Council, the largest body of US-Iranians, heralded the decision as the best of Trump’s presidency, saying in a statement: “This single move dramatically reduces the chances of a new, catastrophic war in the Middle East.”
In contrast, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham praised Bolton on Twitter for “always pursuing an agenda that not only helps the President but makes America safe”.
Trump appointed Bolton in March 2018, having been impressed by the former US ambassador to the UN’s performances as a commentator on Fox News, where he advocated a first strike on North Korea and pushed for regime change in Tehran.
The tension between such a militaristic stance and Trump’s hesitancy about being drawn into another major conflict broke into public view this summer as Bolton was increasingly pushed into the shadows. The division was plain to see when Trump made a surprise visit in June to meet Kim, without his adviser.
In June Trump came close to ordering airstrikes on Iran in response to the shooting down of a US surveillance drone but stood the mission down at
the eleventh hour. That was a blow to Bolton, who had been the keenest advocate of an airstrike.
Over the months Trump began goading Bolton over his hawkish position in front of other officials and even visiting heads of state. According to Axios, he once said in the Oval Office: “John has never seen a war he doesn’t like.”
But the trigger to Tuesday’s changing of the guard appears to have been Afghanistan. Bolton was openly unconvinced by efforts by Trump and Pompeo to do a deal with the Taliban as part of the plan to withdraw US troops from the country.
Trump had been prepared to go as far as to invite Taliban leaders to Camp David just ahead of the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. The talks were cancelled at the last minute – but by then the gulf between the president and his aide had become unbridgeable.