JUNE 23, 2020
For nearly a year and a half, from April 2018 to
September 2019, the Trump administration was in the hands of a “war
cabinet.” With Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, and John Bolton as
National Security Adviser, Donald Trump created one of the most aggressive
foreign policy teams in the history of the presidency. Bolton and Pompeo
were fixated on going to war against Iran; were contemptuous toward our
European allies and the entire European Community; and were opponents of arms
control and disarmament.
President George W. Bush had his own “war cabinet”
with Dick Cheney as Vice President and Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of
Defense. A compliant and deferential national security adviser at the
time, Condi Rice, was no match for either one of them. President Dwight
D. Eisenhower had a team of hawks that included Vice President Richard Nixon,
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and CIA director Allen Dulles, but
Eisenhower was a commander-in-chief fully in control. He ignored their
importuning to use force against Vietnam in the 1950s. Trump similarly rejected
the use of force that Bolton and Pompeo relished.
Long before
the publication of Bolton’s book (“The Room Where It
Happened”), we knew that Trump was
“erratic” and “stunningly uninformed.” Nevertheless, the media extolled
his book before they actually had a copy because it would confirm Trump’s
linkage between military aid to Ukraine and investigations into his political
foe Joe Biden. The Washington Post even referred
to Bolton as a “man of principle” and a fearless infighter for the “sovereignty
of the United States.” Post oped
writer Kathleen Parker noted that Bolton wasn’t interested in the money he will
earn from the book, but that he was only interested in “saving his
legacy.” And what a legacy!
Less than a month into the job of National Security
Adviser, Bolton dissolved the Global Health Security Team, which the Obama
administration had created to prepare and respond to pandemics and other
biological threats. Bolton took this action as an Ebola outbreak was
underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two months later, Bolton
requested the Pentagon to provide the White House with options for military
strikes against Iran, a policy option that he had advocated since his days as
an official in the Bush administration. Between his tours of duty with
Bush and Trump, Bolton had written op-eds that called for use of force and
regime change in Iran and North Korea. Bolton was so opposed to Trump’s
historic meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in the demilitarized zone in
June 2019 that he flew to Mongolia for no obvious reason.
In May 2019, Trump—not known for a sense of
humor—provided a good laugh when he remarked that “I actually temper John,
which is a good thing.” In the cases of Iran and North Korea that was
certainly true. But Bolton was also to the right of Trump on Cuba and
Venezuela, where Bolton hatched a coup plot that resembled aspects of the Bay
of Pigs in 1961 in terms of the “perfect failure” that it was.
Pompeo sided with Bolton on these issues and—like
Bolton—was a veteran of politicizing intelligence to justify his positions.
In his previous positions at the Department of State and the United Nations for
the Bush administration, Bolton had falsified intelligence to argue for use of
force against Cuba and Syria. Pompeo politicized intelligence on Iran and
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear accord) to justify
withdrawal from a successful disarmament treaty. As CIA director, Pompeo
took control of the Counterintelligence Center, presumably to interfere with
the collection of intelligence regarding links between Trump associates and
Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign. Bolton and
Pompeo was formidable allies in removing the United States from the Iran
nuclear accord and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
When the CIA concluded with “high confidence” that
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of
dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, Pompeo disputed the assessment
and declared there was no direct evidence linking the Crown Prince to the
murder. Pompeo ignored congressional restrictions regarding military aid
to Saudi Arabia that was used in war crimes in Yemen; he then fired the
Department of State’s Inspector General was investigating Pompeo’s
deceit. No intelligence has ever been produced to justify Pompeo’s claim
that the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was needed to disrupt
an “imminent attack” by Soleimani operatives.
Like Bolton, Pompeo opposed Trump’s summitry with
Kim Jong-un and, on one occasion, sent a note to Bolton that stated Trump’s
remarks to the North Korean leader were “full of shit.” Pompeo’s
predecessor, Rex Tillerson, never recovered from calling Trump a “fucking
moron,” so don’t expect Pompeo’s comments to be forgotten by the thin-skinned president.
Foreign Service Officers will never forgive Pompeo’s disgraceful treatment of
U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, the victim of a conspiracy-driven
smear campaign by the Trump White House.
Peter Baker’s
story on the Bolton book in the New York Times was titled “Bolton’s Book Reveals Portrait of a President Who’s In
It for Himself.” Well, the same could be said for John Bolton.
Times’ op-ed writer Bret Stephens, who professes to share “many of Bolton’s
hawkish foreign-policy views, concluded “It’s a shame he didn’t” leave the
administration “while he still had a chance to preserve his honor.” The
last three decades of Bolton’s decision making indicates there has never been
such an opportunity.
Trump certainly remains first and foremost in this
loathsome trio for the damage and havoc he has done to governance, particularly
his campaign against the Department of Justice and the justice system itself in
undermining the rule of law. His war against the intelligence community
has compromised our national security. His anti-intellectual campaign
against science and reason harms key agencies of government and has cost lives
in the pandemic. But we should never forget the truckling of Mike Pompeo
and John Bolton.
In rejecting the administration’s efforts to stop
publication of Bolton’s book, the federal judge conceded that the book could
“imperil national security.” No, we have Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo to
thank for the dangers to U.S. security.
Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at
the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns
Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of
Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity:
The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the
CIA. His most recent book is “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing),
and he is the author of the forthcoming “The Dangerous National Security State”
(2020).” Goodman is the national security
columnist for counterpunch.org.
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