This Is the Big Moment for John Bolton

[corbe]

This Is the Big Moment for John Bolton

Bolton has now outlasted his rival James Mattis, but at a cost disfavorable to his lifelong ideology.

by Curt Mills   
December 27, 2018

“By the way John and I agree on all of this,” President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday in Iraq during his surprise visit, in reference to his relationship with his hawkish national security advisor, John R. Bolton.

Referring to the coming shock U.S. pullout  of Syria: “I think John will say that we went through numerous—extension, extension, extension—John? And John’s...pretty strong on the subject. He’s pretty strong, he’s pretty hawkish, on everything having to do with the military.”

Trump had, minutes before, regaled journalists with his thought process on the Syria move, telling those gathered that he had granted Pentagon brass numerous extensions. But for the president—nearly two years in—it had been enough. The Islamic State had been all but extinguished.

But Bolton—only months ago—had said the purpose of sustained U.S. deployment in war-ravaged Syria wasn’t so much the continued banishment of ISIS, as it was the containment of rising regional power Iran (the enemy of the Islamic State).

“We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders and that includes Iranian proxies and militias,” Bolton said in September, meaning for the National Security Council head, the terms were the departure, at the very least, of Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian forces. Bashar al-Assad, the head of Syria’s government, could also be interpreted as an Iranian “proxy.”

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https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/big-moment-john-bolton-39957