JOHN BOLTON PULLS BACK THE CURTAIN IN ‘THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED’
“The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” by John Bolton, President Donald J. Trump’s third former national security adviser in three years, has attracted a lot of attention. Mr. Trump’s administration tried to prevent its publication, fortunately unsuccessfully. It arrived in bookstores two weeks ago. Mr. Bolton’s book is “must” reading for observers of Mr. Trump’s execution of America’s foreign policy and his general approach to government in the runup to 2020’s presidential election.
“The Room Where It Happened” is being regarded as a “tell-all” book on Mr. Trump. It dishes the dirt to a degree but also reveals to some extent an honest effort on the president’s part to conduct a reasonable foreign policy, addressing problems, as they arise, with the exception of the global coronavirus pandemic, which Mr. Trump has attempted to blow off.
The book provides Mr. Bolton’s analysis and account of Mr. Trump’s role in making and carrying out U.S. policy in key areas such as relations with North and South Korea, China, Russia and with America’s allies, including in NATO. It also presents Mr. Bolton’s version of the strengths and weaknesses — mostly weaknesses — of the other players in the panoply of U.S. foreign policy heavy hitters, including former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The book shows Mr. Trump constantly taking shots at his predecessor, President Barack Obama. Mr. Bolton complained about Gen. Mattis’ “obstructionism,” as opposed to insistence on sensible use of U.S. military forces. Mr. Bolton doesn’t like lots of people, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whom he considers to be playing an important role in U.S. policy, well beyond his qualifications and capabilities, particularly in the Middle East.
During his relatively brief sojourn there, the white walrus-mustached Mr. Bolton brought to the Trump administration’s foreign policy an element that was probably to the right of Mr. Trump’s own political dispositions. It is unclear how many of the countless internal battles the combative Mr. Bolton really won and lost. It is important to recall Winston Churchill’s claim that history will be kind to us, because we will write it.
As a professional diplomat, I confess to several sources of discomfort in terms of policy and tactical wisdom as I read Mr. Bolton’s book. First, I didn’t find Mr. Bolton particularly effective in his internal maneuvering to prevail in bureaucratic wrangling in quest of sound policy, apart from the advantages or disadvantages to the United States in the positions he advocated. U.S. Korean policy ended up in “complete chaos,” for example. North Korea still has its nuclear weapons in spite of Mr. Trump’s “love affair” with Kim Jong Un, its unlovable leader. Nicolas Maduro is still president of Venezuela.
Mr. Trump suffers from the illusion that he can “win” through personal relations with foreign leaders. I suppose he is imagining that the international community is just a larger version of New York’s real estate elite. He is not respected by most world leaders, whatever Mr. Bolton says, and is hated by some, including Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. I fervently pray that our next president will regain for America the world’s respect. However, even if we do better this election year, we might elect someone like Mr. Trump in the future who will hire someone like Mr. Bolton.
Second, I just got tired of Mr. Bolton’s detailed accounts of his scraps with the other parties to internal policy-making. The normal objective of such intra-governmental efforts is to achieve a reasonable consensus as the U.S. position. We already knew Mr. Trump gives top priority to his own personal interests as opposed to putting the best interests of the country he ostensibly leads first. Mr. Bolton uses the whole front end of the book to recount his efforts to get the national security job. Given his background and subsequent performance, it is hard to care.
Finally, my conclusion about the Trump foreign policy explored in this book is that one of Mr. Trump’s major faults lies in hiring people such as Mr. Bolton to carry out important functions such as national security adviser. This 541-page book made that abundantly clear in terms of the impact of Mr. Trump’s bad decisions on America’s role in the world, as well as its future prospects at home.