John Bolton and the Iran Deal Blow Up

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo poses for a photo with (L to R) National Security Advisor of the United States John Bolton, President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence before his swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on May 2, 2018. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Now What? President Trump has pulled out of the Iran deal without offering Americans a detailed plan of how he will replace it.

Since the Korean War, American foreign policy has specialized in getting thousands of American troops killed without offering a clear vision of what an end game should look like before entering ground conflicts.

John Bolton, now inside the White House, has (and has had) the ear of President Trump. History is clear on the record of John Bolton. Mr. Bolton has however apparently not learned a thing from history.

Americans may be correct in labeling Bill Kristol as this century’s” neocon number one,” that is, often wrong, but never in doubt. John Bolton, along with Kristol, was a founder of the disaster labeled Project for a New American Century. I hope I am not being unfair to label PNAC as one of the more harmful policy groups in American history.

A track record of abject failure should have prevented John Bolton from having even the most insignificant position in American government. Aside from Mr. Kristol, I cannot think of any American policymaker or thinker with a worse record of giving strategy advice or learning from history.