As Donald Trump continued to make major changes to the personnel in his administration, the firing of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster last week created an opening for a critical position in the White House. That the president decided to fill that vacancy with the appointment of war hawk John Bolton, was not so surprising, but was nonetheless greeted with concern and dread in the U.S. and around the world.
Bolton, who served as George W. Bush’s United Nations ambassador, is well known for his role advocating for the disastrous 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq – and more recent calls for a military first strike against North Korea and a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Bolton, a regular commentator on Fox News, has long opposed the 2015 Obama administration-brokered international agreement with Iran that halted the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program.
With CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s recent nomination to succeed fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Bolton scheduled to start his new job as National Security Advisor on April 9, there’s speculation that President Trump will decide to pull the U.S. out of the nuclear pact with Iran when he must decide whether or not to waive sanctions against Iran on May 12. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Jim Lobe, the former chief of the Washington, D.C. bureau of Inter Press Service and founder of the LobeLog.com. Here, he discusses John Bolton’s views on the use of military force, as well as the implications for future U.S. policy in Iran, Korea and elsewhere around the world.
JIM LOBE: John Bolton is a pretty unique character in that he’s kind of the hawk’s hawk. He even puts many neoconservatives somewhat on the defensive. He believes strongly in military solutions to political problems. He doesn’t like the idea of nation-building.
And unlike the neoconservatives, he really is not into promotion of democracy, which neoconservatives have always given a great deal of lip service to, while though sometimes there’s been a failure to back that up, particularly with respect to certain countries that they consider to be allied to the United States.
He’s very much of an “America First-er,” but he believes the U.S. military should be involved in the world and should be prepared to use force at all times. He’s way to the right – very much on the militarism scale, even though he took some considerable efforts to avoid military service during the Vietnam War.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Jim, it seems there’s an important date coming up in mid-May, where Donald Trump will be on the spot to decide whether to continue on observing the international nuclear agreement with Iran – or not. And he certainly sent many signals that he wants to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. What are the repercussions for that nuclear agreement with many other important nations around the world if the U.S. and the Trump administration does decide to pull out?
JIM LOBE: Well, I think it’s a little hard to predict. A great deal depends on the position taken by the major European powers – Britain, France and Germany – as well as the European Union itself. All of which are parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is the formal name of the nuclear deal. They were negotiating – that is, what is called the “EU three” – they were negotiating until last week on possible “fixes” to the JCPOA. And even then, it wasn’t clear that if they went through with those fixes that Iran itself wouldn’t walk away from the agreement, because by its nature, any “fixes” would violate what was agreed to in 2015, when the JCPOA was concluded.
What is likely, what I would personally hope, is that the nomination of both (Mike) Pompeo and the appointment of Bolton will actually make clear to all concerned that the United States is really not serious about fulfilling its commitments to the JCPOA. And that will stiffen their spines.
And if they show that they do have spines, that they’re willing to counteract any U.S. renunciation of the deal. And by counteract, i mean essentially encouraging their companies to invest in Iran or to sell to Iran – and indicating in no uncertain terms that if the United States does anything with respect to increasing military tensions or actually taking some form of action in the region against Iran, that Europe will not be with them.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Now the other very concerning policy issue that will be coming to a head quite soon is the planned summit between Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. We’re going to have John Bolton whispering in Donald Trump’s ear in the lead up to that summit, whenever it actually does occur. There is a lot of danger, is there not, in failing at that summit, which could lead to greater tensions than we’ve even had before in the last year and a half.
JIM LOBE: Yeah, I think that’s quite possible. I mean, Trump is uninformed, as we all know. Bolton denounced the idea of any negotiation with North Korea let alone a presidential summit with North Korea. I don’t think anybody knows what to expect. But I think Bolton will try to use this scheduled summit – if it does take place – to say, “Well, we extended our hand and we didn’t get everything we wanted. The North did not agree to denuclearize within a certain amount of time. So now we have to prepare for military action.”
And again, nobody knows how that’s going to turn out – because of course, North Korea, is actually nuclear arms state with the ability to deliver nuclear weapons far and wide.
I mean, the result of Bolton’s appointment is, if nothing else, our traditional allies – be they in western Europe or in northeast Asia, like Japan and South Korea – are going to distance themselves increasingly from Washington, even just because of Bolton and what he represents and how he’s acted in the past. They’re pretty frightened by the possible consequences.
Jim Lobe is former Washington, D.C. bureau chief of Inter Press service and founder of LobeLog.com.
