John Bolton, Trump’s New Pick for National Security Advisor: Envoy of Evil or Just a Great Danger to the Middle East?
By: J. Michael Springmann, Arab America Contributing Writer
Who? North Korean Premier Kim Jong Il’s remarks to the side, John Bolton is the latest in President Trump’s foreign policy mistakes. According to the Washington Post of March 24, 2018, the new advisor “has spent a long career in foreign policy and is deeply versed in national security issues…” However, Bolton, former recess-appointment ambassador to the United Nations, worked to keep the U.S. free of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction. He also drafted the State Department Fact Sheet “that claimed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium for nuclear weapons…” He also was and is a strong supporter of America’s 2003 invasion and destruction of Iraq.
What! While the Post, in another article that day, quotes the disappointments of European officials on the style of American “diplomacy”, it dances around Bolton’s threat to Iran and the Arab world. However, it does note Pierre Vimont’s comments. The retired French diplomat said that the list of U.S. government figures opposing the Iranian nuclear deal [such as Bolton] is growing. Iran’s Guardian Council (influential clerics), the Post stated, asserted that Bolton supported the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a group advocating the overthrow of Iran’s government. [In 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed the MEK from a list of terrorist organizations following substantial payments to influential U.S. government figures. The Washington, D.C. paper also printed comments by Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, an adviser to Iran’s Speaker of Parliament: Trump choosing Bolton is part of a more militarized American approach to the Middle East. He observed, “The United States only understands ‘the language of power’.”
Iran. The new national security advisor is also seen by some U.S. journalists as a threat to Iran. In the American Conservative this month, Gareth Porter noted that “[He] creates a prospect of war with Iran that is very real. Bolton is no ordinary neoconservative hawk. He has been obsessed for many years with going to war against the Islamic Republic, calling repeatedly for bombing Iran in his regular appearances on Fox News, without the slightest indication that he understands the consequences of such a policy. His is not merely a rhetorical stance on Iran from 2002 through 2004, to establish the political conditions necessary for the administration, to carry out military action.”
Israel. Israeli government figures welcomed Bolton’s appointment. Naftali Bennett, Premier Netanyahu’s Education Minister, termed Bolton “an extraordinary security expert, experienced diplomat, and a stalwart friend of Israel…”
Palestine. Palestinians, however, had a different view. The Post went on to quote them as being infuriated by Bolton’s appointment, especially coming so soon after Trump’s announcement that the American embassy to Israel would move to al-Quds [Jerusalem]. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s executive committee, commented that Bolton had claimed Palestinians do not have a right to self- determination. She went on to say that his appointment “adds insult to injury.” Additionally, she remarked that “This is unprecedented, this lethal combination of hard-liners, Israel-firsters, who is in charge of decision-making in the U.S.”
The investigative reporter Wayne Madsen has also provided insight into the new national security advisor’s views on Southwest Asia: “On the issue of Palestine, Bolton has demanded the abolishment of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers aid programs for Palestinian refugees. In May 2017, before accepting the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University in Jerusalem, Bolton told The Jerusalem Post that the “two-state solution” of Israel and an independent Palestinian state should be abandoned, Hamas, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority disbanded, Gaza given to Egypt, and the West Bank divided between Israel and Jordan. Bolton cynically said he believes in a “three-state solution” with Israel, Egypt, and Jordan taking control of current Palestinian territory.” www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20180313
COMMENT: It ‘s 1,737 km. (1,079 mi.) from Palestine to Iran. John Bolton is on record for his opposition to the existence of Palestine and his efforts to destroy Iran. The former is small and Arab and the latter is large and Aryan. However, to date, no one seems to have commented on the land in between Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia plus the Gulf States.
Bolton’s views on the geographic extremes are clear. But what do we infer about his attitudes towards the lands in the middle? Have we heard one word from him about Syria? Has he said he wants to restore and strengthen Bilad al-Sham? Will he likely say that? La (No)! Jordan? The Hashemite kingdom could likely be forced to go along with Bolton’s plan, such as absorbing parts of Palestine. Iraq? We’ve seen that he backed the Black Land’s destruction. Saudi Arabia and the Gulfies? They could be the handle on the club Bolton will use to oppose any Arab or Muslim secular state that doesn’t toe the American line. There’s even speculation that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman will dedicate a bit of the Kingdom’s desert as a pen for Palestinians to be removed from their homeland.
What does this really mean? The prospects for general, not limited, war have gone up sharply. How many Palestinians will put up with another removal to another open-air prison? How many Iranians will submit to more controls on their economy and interference in their domestic affairs? How many Russians will countenance another U.S. attack on their soldiers when they’re in the way of American-sponsored regime change in Syria?
Both Donald J. Trump and John Bolton fit British politician Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill’s remark about former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: he’s “‘the only bull I know who carries his china closet with him.” www.nytimes.com/1986/07/13/books/dull-duller-dulles.html
A war waged by Trump and Bolton, will smash more than china.
Michael Springmann is an attorney, author, and political commentator. He has written Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked The World and a second book Goodbye, Europe? Hello, Chaos? Merkel’s Migrant Bomb. Both are available on Amazon. The books’ website is: www.michaelspringmann.com