Donald Trump has appointed John Bolton, a former Bush administration official, as his new national security advisor, replacing army general HR McMaster.
It’s an interesting move given the president has previously voiced sharp criticism of the Bush administration, saying in 2013: “All former Bush administration officials should have zero standing” on international issues, such as the Syrian war.
The announcement came just over a week after Trump fired Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, and nominated CIA director Mike Pompeo to replace him.
What people think about John Bolton
Before we look at some of his finer moments, let’s begin with a few quotes about Bolton from security experts and human rights activists. The consensus is: we should all be very scared.
“I think I would rest easy if he was dog catcher in Stone Mountain, Georgia. But maybe not.”
- Carl Ford, former head of the State Department's intelligence bureau.
“Remember when we used to reassure ourselves that Trump's foreign policy wouldn't be so bad because there were grown-ups in the room?”
- Kenneth Roth, Executive Director Human Rights Watch
Bolton’s own views...
1) ON NORTH KOREA
Bolton is a hard-line hawk and has advocated using military force against both North Korea and Iran.
His uncompromising stance on the totalitarian state, led by the secretive Kim Jong-un, is summed up in this unequivocal line from a 2003 New York Times interview.
There is nothing to indicate Bolton’s views have changed since this interview, and this has raised concerns ahead of a prospective summit meeting between Trump and the North Korean leader, for which no date has yet been set. In January, Bolton tweeted:
Bonnie Glaser, Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said: “Bolton has long supported regime change in North Korea and closer ties with Taiwan. Fasten your seat belts.”
Pyongyang had no immediate comment about Bolton’s appointment, but back in 2003, state media called him “human scum and bloodsucker.”
2) ON IRAQI WMDs
“We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction.”
- John Bolton, 2002
SPOILER ALERT - he didn’t.
3) ON WEAPONS IN GENERAL
Bolton’s penchant for weapons extends far beyond missiles – as this video recorded for a Russian gun rights group in 2013 shows.
In it he appears to show a complete ignorance of the existence of supermarkets, whilst also keeping open the option of owning some type of space laser in the future.
“This right has assured Americans of their freedom to engage in two critical acts of survival: the gathering of food and the protection of their families by all appropriate means.
“Our right bear arms does not detail what types of arms those may be, an important point that allows for both the evolution of technology and the evolution of responses to threats not then or yet imagined.”
4) ON OBAMA
During a speech described by the anti-hate monitor Southern Poverty Law Center as an “anti-Muslim conference”, Bolton made a “joke” implying President Obama was Muslim.
“King Abdullah of Jordan, who is not simply a Muslim king of a Muslim country, unlike our President.”
Bolton was the keynote speaker at the 2016 event, titled Islam & Western Civilisation: Can They Coexit?
According to one report the answer was a resounding “no”.
5) ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Despite being the US Ambassador to the UN for over a year, Bolton has nothing but disdain for the international community as evidenced by his own book Surrender Is Not An Option.
Some choice quotes include:
“I saw treaties as essentially only political documents.”
“[The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treat is a] Cold War relic that essentially precluded both Russia and the US from developing national missile defence systems.”
And to finish:
“There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along.”