John Bolton has some tough words for President Trump in this op-ed he wrote for the WSJ, pointing out that Trump’s foreign policy isn’t looking much different than did Obama’s, and he’s almost past the point of no return:
WSJ – The White House decided last week to continue President Obama’s waiver of significant economic sanctions against Iran. The news, coming hard on the heels of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s April 18 certification that Iran is complying with the 2015 Vienna nuclear agreement, was both revealing and distressing. New missile-related sanctions, simultaneously imposed, were small consolation.
This continuity with Obama-era policies fits a larger pattern. Despite generally tougher rhetoric against Iran and North Korea—including the president’s weekend speech in Saudi Arabia—the Trump administration’s actions against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction increasingly resemble its predecessor’s.
Rhetoric doesn’t faze Iran so long as the nuclear deal’s goodies keep coming, and the ayatollahs have had the effrontery to complain they aren’t flowing fast enough. President Obama and Tehran crafted the Vienna accord in ways that front-loaded the benefits for Iran, intending to lock America and Europe into economic ties that would be too costly to untangle. Every passing day validates that strategy.
Meanwhile, Iran’s violations—regarding uranium enrichment, heavy-water production, ballistic-missile testing and concealed military dimensions such as warhead development—continue unimpeded. Unexpected, unnecessary and divorced from reality, Mr. Tillerson’s certification of Iranian compliance blindsided the White House, which responded by toughening up the final presentation but lacked the wherewithal to reverse the decision. Friday’s election returning Hassan Rouhani to Iran’s presidency changed nothing, since the nuclear and ballistic-missile programs are controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
A similar policy continuity can be seen regarding North Korea. Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Obama did not obsess over negotiations with North Korea (preferring to obsess over negotiations with Iran). Instead, he propounded the doctrine of “strategic patience,” a synonym for doing nothing, which proved equally as dangerous as making foolish concessions. Predictably, Pyongyang took advantage of American passivity. It concentrated on making steady, significant progress on both nuclear weapons (a sixth test is reportedly being readied) and long-range missiles.
Mr. Trump’s current policy differs little from that of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Mr. Obama, relying mistakenly on China to pressure Pyongyang. As before, Beijing is feigning pressure, but as yet there is no evidence it will be any tougher than is necessary to quiet America down. South Korea has just thrown Kim Jong Un a lifeline by electing a president eager to return to the “sunshine” policy—appeasement by another name. And the full scope of Pyongyang’s cooperation with Tehran remains unknown.
This article was written on Monday, before Trump went to Israel and made his comments on Iran. But I don’t think that would change Bolton’s position very much, as he already suggests that Trump’s rhetoric is certainly tougher but his policies aren’t.
There’s a lot more in the article that you can read here, but Bolton ends it like this:
The Trump administration has not yet passed the point of no return on these critical issues, but it is getting perilously close. Warning flags are multiplying. Ronald Reagan once said he wanted a Republican Party that stood for “bold colors, no pale pastels.” Mr. Trump should get out his paintbrush.
When it comes to foreign policy, it doesn’t get much better than Bolton. This is why we wanted him to lead the State Department instead of Tillerson (or anyone else for that matter). We also wanted him to be Trump’s NSA after Flynn was ousted, but Trump chose McMaster instead.
And now look where Trump’s foreign policy is ending up.
Even on Israel Trump is looking more like Obama. Bolton basically calls him out for breaking his promise to move the embassy to Jerusalem, pointing out that his administration won’t even recognize that the Western Wall is a part of Israel. As he points out:
Before Mr. Trump’s current trip to the Middle East, senior administration officials repeated the mantra that Jerusalem’s Western Wall was not “in Israel” because Jerusalem’s final status remained to be negotiated. The White House responded that the wall is “clearly in Jerusalem” — a point no one has disputed for several thousand years.
Trump is so invested in the delusion of peace that his administration (minus Nikki Haley, of course) is treating Israel almost exactly as Obama did from a policy standpoint.
So yes, I think Bolton has it exactly right in his assessment. Trump has become Obama and I don’t think much is going to change that in the near future.