Bonkers Bolton no hero in exposing Trump mendacity

John Bolton is making millions with his cleverly titled tell-all take down of President Trump, ‘The Room Where It Happened’. It turns out Bolton offers little insight into Trump’s mendacity we didn’t already know. We learn his leaving Trump’s service after 17 months was mutual; he got tired of failing to get Trump to attack Iran, and Trump got tired of Bolton’s endless war mongering. Last June, Bolton was ecstatic Trump was on the verge of bombing Iran after they shot down a US drone. His glee turned to gloom when Trump backed down at the eleventh hour. Several months earlier Bolton helped sabotage Trump’s ballyhooed North Korea peace initiative by demanding North Korea give up its entire nuclear program and "everything associated with it" before any sanctions could be removed. Bolton even warned about adding more sanctions. North Korea's response was “You're nuts” and walked away, leaving Trump’s imagined diplomatic triumph in tatters.

  

That's how John 'Bonkers' Bolton got his nickname, going off the rails to upend peace agreements and negotiations going on three decades. In 1998, he signed the ‘Project For A New American Century’, urging President Clinton to oust Iraq President Saddam Hussein. In 2001, Bolton led the effort to encourage President George W Bush to withdraw from the 1971 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. A year later he urged the President to withdraw from the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, paving the way for their building their first nuclear weapons, which now number sixty. After 911, Bolton became a vociferous proponent of immoral, illegal and criminal war in Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands. He deserved being shunned by Obama as the moral monster he is. Alas, a clueless Trump installed him as National Security Adviser where he worked to ditch the 5 + 1 Nuclear Agreement with Iran, setting the stage for eventual regime change, possibly even war. Then Trump gave him top billing at the North Korea summit in Hanoi where he ensured a summit failure.

John Bolton is America’s version of Allstate’s pitch man ‘Mr. Mayhem’. Unlike the funny Mr. Mayhem who messes hilariously with folks’ insurance woes, Bolton’s Mr. Mayhem is a scourge threatening the world’s fragile peace. He should have titled his memoir, ‘The Room Where I Couldn’t Launch Another War’.