In John Bolton, our president has found the foreign policy adviser he deserves. A thoroughly unpleasant man, Bolton never met a war he didn’t like — with the exception, that is, of the only one he was of an age to fight in himself. As he later told his classmates at Yale, he “had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy.” Bolton led the cheers for our disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq. He may still be looking for those elusive weapons of mass destruction.
These days he is spoiling for a fight with Iran and North Korea, and he may get his wish. Released from the fetters of the nuclear deal negotiated by the previous administration, as now seems inevitable, Iran will make a fine target for a bombing campaign. The Iranians are Muslims after all, and a short, sharp war with Iran might appeal to the president’s nativist base. As for North Korea, the backlash sure to follow the failure of President Donald Trump’s feckless summit gamble will create new opportunities for a war of choice that is certain to end very badly.
In Trump, too, Bolton has finally found the president he has been searching for. It is true that Bolton has convictions of a sort, while Trump has none, but Bolton’s bellicose convictions serve Trump’s purposes. It is a safe assumption that our president is unaware of the advice Shakespeare’s Henry IV gave to his son that he should “busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels” to distract the world from inquiring too closely into his legitimacy, but Trump needs to divert public opinion from a likely confrontation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the law, not to mention from Stormy Daniels and women accusing him of sexual misconduct.
What better way for the military school cadet with bone spurs to prove his manhood than to transform himself into a wartime commander in chief? The potentially catastrophic consequences for the country and the world can safely be disregarded. The one person who matters in the universe of Donald J. Trump will not be at risk.
[Opinion: Trump is leaving our ship of state rudderless, and the seas ahead look rough]
It is ironic but characteristic of our politics that, with the State Department out of action, the principal impediments left within the executive branch to the twin disasters of war with Iran and North Korea are two retired Marine Corps generals: John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff at the White House, and James Mattis, his secretary of defense.
Unlike Trump and Bolton, they know from bitter first-hand experience that there is no such thing as a splendid little war. Both men can be counted on to ensure that the president is forced to confront the consequences of a war of choice, but Kelly’s departure may not be long in coming. Trump is openly restive under the discipline Kelly has sought to establish in the West Wing, and Trump chafes at Kelly’s attempts to manage him. It is unlikely that Trump has forgiven Kelly for humiliating his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, by stripping him of his security clearance.
As for Mattis, Trump will tread wearily where he is concerned. In matters of war and peace, Mattis is unlikely to comply with orders from the likes of Bolton. If Trump were to fire Mattis, as he has every constitutional right to do, or if Mattis were to resign, his departure would provoke a crisis as severe as the firing of Mueller.
[Opinion: Trump wants us to ignore Russiagate, but this story won’t go away]
Can anything be done about this impending tragedy, apart from awaiting the appearance of Mueller ex machina? There is something the Senate can do, and our Maine senators in particular.
As a White House staffer, Bolton is not subject to Senate confirmation, but that is not the case with Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, CIA Director Mike Pompeo. In normal times, a president is owed some deference to his choice of a secretary of state, but these are not normal times. Like Bolton, Pompeo is a hardliner’s hardliner, especially on Iran. His confirmation would accelerate the rush to war, but the reverse is also true — and it would only take a few Republican defections to prevent it.
Otherwise, we are left only to join former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said in a farewell talk at the State Department that he was praying for our country.
Laurence Pope is a retired ambassador. He served in senior positions in the U.S. Department of State during a 30-year career and as charge d’affaires in Libya after the assassination of Ambassador Christopher Stevens. He lives in Portland.
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