John Bolton is a ghastly prospect for deputy secretary of state, but Rex Tillerson is a winner. Here theamaricancoonservative.com summarizes how things stand.
President-elect Trump’s State Department selections have managed to trigger opposition from two distinct and opposed camps. The neocons and anti-Russians oppose Exxon chief Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state designate, as too inclined to accommodate Putin. The disparate but occasionally united liberal, arms-control, and realist types are equally alarmed about John Bolton’s apparent selection for the number-two deputy secretary of state slot.
The problem with Bolton is simple. If you liked George W. Bush’s foreign policy, especially the Iraq War and the idea of regime change carried out by the American military on a multi-country, pan-regional scale, and you want get that kind of policy going again, the search is over: he’s definitely the guy.
The politicians and voters of Western Europe seem to be fast recognizing that their social systems are far more threatened by uncontrolled migration and terrorism than than they are by Moscow’s fumbling efforts to retain political influence in its near border areas. That is eminently sensible, and one hopes that some variant of this conclusion make its way across the Atlantic. Perhaps, with Trump’s election, it already has.
