Donald
Trump ousts top adviser John Bolton: 'I disagreed strongly with him'
Trump to
name new national security adviser next week
Bolton took
hawkish positions on major foreign policy issues
Bolton
fired as Trump’s national security adviser – live updates
Ed
Pilkington in New York and Julian Borger in Washington
Wed 11 Sep
2019 07.31 BSTFirst published on Tue 10 Sep 2019 17.27 BST
Donald
Trump with John Bolton. Trump said on Twitter: ‘I informed John Bolton last
night that his services are no longer needed.’
Donald
Trump has fired his national security adviser, John Bolton, in a pair of tweets
in which he laid bare searing internal divisions within his inner circle,
saying he had “disagreed strongly” with his top aide.
The
departure of such a resolute hawk raises the possibility that Trump’s foreign
policy could now make a dovish turn in the run up to next year’s elections, in
particular with respect to Iran.
The
president’s firing of his third national security adviser in as many years
appears to have caught even the White House by surprise. The explosive tweets
were posted barely an hour after it was announced that Bolton would be
appearing at a press conference alongside the secretaries of state and
treasury.
Bolton
himself added to the confusion, commenting minutes after his public dismissal
that he had offered to resign on Monday night but that Trump had replied:
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
Bolton
continued to press his case that he had resigned rather than being fired. He
sent out a battery of texts including to Fox News presenters on air as well as
the Washington Post, protesting: “I resigned, having offered to do so last
night.”
Bolton’s
resignation letter was terse in the extreme.
“I hereby
resign, effective immediately, as Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to serve our
country,” the two-line note said.
The
sacking-cum-resignation of the lavishly mustachioed Bolton, an ultra-hawk on
foreign policy who under George Bush was a key architect of the invasion of
Iraq in 2003, brings to a head mounting tensions within Trump’s top team of
national security and foreign policy strategists.
His removal
had been a long time coming, with Trump making little effort to disguise his
dissatisfaction over many months.
According
to the New York Times, Bolton had refused to appear on television talk shows on
25 August after the G7 summit in Biarritz so he did not have defend the
president’s views on Russia
The two men
agreed on some issues, like scrapping multilateral agreements such as the 2015
nuclear deal with Iran and tearing up the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty with Russia.
But Trump’s
maverick approach to dealing with tough men and adversaries, in which he has
emphasized a willingness to deal directly with America’s traditional enemies,
such as Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong-un in North Korea – and most
recently the Taliban in Afghanistan – was increasingly at odds with Bolton’s
hardline belief that US military might is right.
Bolton was
also reported to have a testy relationship with the US secretary of state, Mike
Pompeo. The two officials are said to have been at loggerheads for months to
the extent that in recent days they were not speaking other than at official
engagements.
“There were
definitely places that Ambassador Bolton and I had different views about how we
should proceed,” Pompeo said yesterday. Asked if he had been taken unawares by
the development, the secretary of state smiled and said: “I’m never surprised.”
Bolton also
appears to have alienated Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff,
for his refusal to promote presidential policies he did not agree with.
“It was in
Bolton’s nature to run an imperial NSC [national security council] but he
stepped on the toes of too many people,” said Mark Groombridge, who worked for
Bolton for a decade. “He got into the crosshairs of Pompeo and Mulvaney, who
saw Bolton as a liability for the 2020 election. War on every front was not
what Trump ran on.”
Trump was
unusually candid about the rift within his own inner team. In the tweets he
posted on Tuesday announcing Bolton’s departure he wrote: “I informed John
Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I
disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the
Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given
to me this morning.”
Trump said
he would announce his pick for his fourth national security adviser next week,
and early speculation on candidates pointed to the ambassador to Germany,
Richard Grenell, Iran envoy Brian Hook and Robert Blair, an aide to Mulvaney.
An adviser
to Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said Bolton’s departure underlined the
failure of Washington’s “maximum pressure strategy” against Iran.
“The
marginalisation and subsequent elimination of Bolton is not an accident but a
decisive sign of the failure of the US maximum pressure strategy in the face of
the constructive resistance of Iran,” Hesameddin Ashena tweeted.
Bolton’s
departure could open the way to fresh diplomacy with Iran. Trump has repeatedly
said he is prepared to meet Rouhani, at the urging of France’s president,
Emmanuel Macron.
Asked on
Tuesday if he could foresee such a meeting at the UN general assembly later
this month, Pompeo replied: “Sure.”
Commentators
interpreted the news as further evidence of chaos and confusion within Trump’s
White House, but there were also loud sighs of relief from those who were
delighted to see such a hawkish influence excised from the heart of government.
Elizabeth
Warren, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, agreed,
saying: “The American people are better off with John Bolton out of the White
House.”
Her rival,
Bernie Sanders tweeted: “A symptom of the problem is gone. The root cause of
authoritarianism remains.”
The
National Iranian American Council, the largest body of US-Iranians, heralded
the decision as the best of Trump’s presidency, saying in a statement: “This
single move dramatically reduces the chances of a new, catastrophic war in the
Middle East.”
In
contrast, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham praised Bolton on Twitter for
“always pursuing an agenda that not only helps the President but makes America
safe”.
Trump
appointed Bolton in March 2018, having been impressed by the former US
ambassador to the UN’s performances as a commentator on Fox News, where he
advocated a first strike on North Korea and pushed for regime change in Tehran.
The tension
between such a militaristic stance and Trump’s hesitancy about being drawn into
another major conflict broke into public view this summer as Bolton was
increasingly pushed into the shadows. The division was plain to see when Trump
made a surprise visit in June to meet Kim, without his adviser.
In June
Trump came close to ordering airstrikes on Iran in response to the shooting
down of a US surveillance drone but stood the mission down at the eleventh
hour. That was a blow to Bolton, who had been the keenest advocate of an
airstrike.
Over the
months Trump began goading Bolton over his hawkish position in front of other
officials and even visiting heads of state. According to Axios, he once said in
the Oval Office: “John has never seen a war he doesn’t like.”
But the
trigger to Tuesday’s changing of the guard appears to have been Afghanistan.
Bolton was openly unconvinced by efforts by Trump and Pompeo to do a deal with
the Taliban as part of the plan to withdraw US troops from the country.
Trump had
been prepared to go as far as to invite Taliban leaders to Camp David just
ahead of the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The talks were cancelled at the last minute – but by then the gulf between the
president and his aide had become unbridgeable.
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