Bolton rips Don on Taliban, Iran, NoKo

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton on Wednesday ripped President Trump’s aborted plan to invite the Taliban to Camp David, saying the move sent a “terrible signal” and was “disrespectful” to the victims of 9/11 because the Taliban had harbored al Qaeda.

Bolton, speaking at a private luncheon at Le Bernardin in Manhattan, also said negotiations with North Korea and Iran were “doomed to failure” on Trump’s watch, two people who were there told Politico.

All the North Koreans and Iranians want is relief from sanctions to support their economies, Bolton told guests at the event hosted by the Gatestone Institute, a conservative think tank.

“He ripped Trump, without using his name, several times,” said one attendee.

Bolton also said more than once that Trump’s failure to respond to the Iranian attack on an American drone earlier this summer set the stage for the Islamic Republic’s aggression in recent months — including Saturday’s large-scale attack on Saudi oil fields.

Bolton, a former chairman of Gatestone, said that had the United States retaliated for the drone shootdown, Iran might not have succeeded in the oil attack.

The comments came on the same day Trump named Bolton’s successor, hostage negotiator Robert O’Brien. After the attack on the US drone in June, Trump was prepared to launch a retaliatory strike against Iran — but later announced that he had changed his mind. Bolton said the response had gone through the full process and everybody in the White House had agreed on the retaliation.

But “a high authority, at the very last minute,” without consulting anyone, decided not to do it, he said.

President Trump on Wednesday named his chief hostage negotiator, Robert O’Brien, to succeed John Bolton as national security adviser.

“He did a tremendous job on hostage negotiation, really tremendous — like unparalleled,” Trump said as O’Brien stood next to him while on a fund-raising trip in Los Angeles. “I think we have a very good chemistry together and we’re going to have a great relationship.”

O’Brien, who becomes Trump’s fourth national security adviser after Bolton’s ouster last week, was the special envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department. He aided in the release of American Danny Burch from Yemen following 18 months in captivity.

O’Brien takes over as the Middle East is on edge after the bombing of Saudi oil facilities on Saturday.

Asked about inheriting the job at such a precarious time, O’Brien said, “We’re looking at those issues now.

“We’ve got a number of challenges, but there’s a great team in place with Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo and [Defense] Secretary [Mark] Esper, and I look forward to working with them and working with the president to keep America safe and continue to rebuild our military.”