Are Americans Getting the Foreign Policy They Voted For With Robert O’Brien?

President Trump has chosen Robert O’Brien as his next National Security Adviser. While almost anyone is an improvement over ultra-hawk John Bolton, Daniel Larison writes at The American Conservative that O’Brien was still a bad choice. The danger, it seems, is that O’Brien is just one more cog in the globalist neoconservative machine in Washington and that his appointment will bring little of the “America First” foreign policy guidance the President’s supporters were hoping for in the White House. Larison writes (abridged):

Trump announced the selection of his fourth National Security Advisor:

President Trump announced Wednesday that Robert O’Brien, the special envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department, will be his next national security advisor.

O’Brien previously served in the Bush administration’s State Department. Hugh Hewitt, who wrote the foreword to O’Brien’s book, has described him as a “long time colleague of John Bolton.” Since the Bush years, O’Brien advised the Romney 2012 campaign, and he also advised the short-lived Scott Walker campaign in the 2016 cycle. He is a typical hawkish Republican.

I have had occasion to criticize O’Brien’s writings in the past. Back in 2014, he was praising Romney for his “Churchill-like warning of a resurgent Russia,” and I pointed out that Romney had said a lot of ignorant, knee-jerk things about Russia that were wrong. The fact that O’Brien thought and probably still thinks that “Romney was right” about anything related to foreign policy is more evidence that Trump made a very poor choice again.

O’Brien probably wasn’t the worst choice Trump could have made, but Trump’s fourth choice for National Security Advisor is still a bad one.

Read more here.