JOHN BOLTON is not well-liked in Washington. A warmonger and bully, the national security adviser is disdainful of the bipartisan foreign-policy world and the governing institutions its members cycle in and out of. That he oversees one of them is typical of the plate-smashing Trump administration. Yet few doubt that Mr Bolton is a wily operator. As President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser—and the first with previous experience of civilian bureaucracy—he has already demonstrated his mastery of the inter-agency policy process. His role in derailing, at least temporarily, Mr Trump’s planned meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore therefore demands scrutiny.
Mr Bolton suggested the “Libya model” was what America wanted from North Korea. That was not illogical. Mr Trump had demanded Mr Kim take the same step as Muammar Qaddafi in 2003: denuclearisation in return for sanctions relief. Yet the fact that Qaddafi was later bombed from power by a NATO intervention, dragged from his...Continue reading
Source: United States https://ift.tt/2LNNBMX
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