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Bolton

McCarthy Dissects Senate Impeachment Questions, Bolton Revelations

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Listen to “McCarthy Dissects Senate Impeachment Questions, Bolton Revelations” on Spreaker.

On Wednesday, the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump shifted to a new phase, with senators asking questions of the lawyers on both sides of the case. But did we get some insightful and pertinent questions or was it mostly political grandstanding? And did we learn anything new?

In this podcast, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy tackles those questions and also dives into the controversy over former National Security Adviser John Bolton allegedly confirming Trump demanded Ukraine launch investigations in exchange for military aid from the U.S.  And McCarthy offers a way to give both sides what they want with respect to Bolton without extending the trial any longer than necessary.

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Bolton Out as National Security Adviser

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Listen to “Bolton Out as National Security Adviser” on Spreaker.

President Trump is looking for his fourth National Security Adviser in less than three years following the departure of John Bolton on Tuesday, just 18 months after taking the job.

The debate continues as to whether Bolton resigned (as he claims) or whether he was fired, as Trump insists.  More importantly, what impact did Bolton have on the Trump administration?  Why was the proposed meeting with the Taliban at Camp David the final straw?

Former Pentagon official Jed Babbin believes Bolton was trying to influence Trump in the right direction.

“He was a hard liner and trying to restrain Mr. Trump’s straying off of America’s best interests,” said Babbin, who served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration.

“I would think that a lot of the things you saw, in respect to Iran in particular, with Mr. Trump going ahead with a very hard line against Iran is certainly due to Bolton,” added Babbin.

As mentioned in Trump’s tweets announcing Bolton’s departure, the president and Bolton disagreed about many policies, most recently whether to hold a summit with the Taliban at Camp David.  Trump scuttled the meeting after a terrorist attack killed an American service member, but seemed very much in favor of the idea while reports show Bolton adamantly opposed it.

Babbin says the meeting was a “horrid” idea.

“First off, we did not have an agreement.  You don’t bring the president in to sign the outline of an agreement, which was apparently Mr. Trump’s idea that he would get together with the Taliban to do,” said Babbin, who also blasted the negotiations with the Taliban to this point.

“Number two, you have to have preconditions to any negotiation really.  When (lead U.S. negotiator) Zalmay Khalilzad went in there without first demanding a cease-fire in Afghanistan that lasted more than ten minutes, that was a huge mistake,” said Babbin.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Babbin’s assessment of Trump’s approach to North Korea and what kind of successor to Bolton is likely to emerge.  Babbin also explains why it “beats the snot out of me” what the Trump approach to foreign policy actually is.

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U.S. Stopped Iran in Nick of Time

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The U.S. likely stopped an Iranian attack on American personnel or other interests with little time to spare by announcing an aircraft carrier and bomber group are headed to the Middle East, and retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash says the statement released by the Trump administration tells us a lot even if we have no deals about the thwarted plot.

National Security Adviser John Bolton announced the move Sunday due to “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”  He further stated the deployment decision is designed “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

“The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces,” continued Bolton.

Nash calls Bolton’s language about troubling and escalatory indications and warnings is”pretty unambiguous.”

“That is language that means we have verifiable evidence.  Verifiable evidence could be signals intelligence backed by movements on the ground, where you see not just a plan being discussed where it could be a fake but you actually see forces or people moving into positions that would follow along to where it’s just chatter,” said Nash.

Nash also translated into more plain language.

“I think what he is laying out to the Iranian regime is, ‘We gotcha.  OK?  We gotcha.  We know what’s going on.’  That will get them to back down because their plan is obviously blown,” said Nash.

“Whatever it was, we found out about it and now they know that we know and if they go through with it, not only is the plan likely to fail but they’re likely to reap severe repercussions,” he added.

Nash also elaborated on what the USS Abraham Lincoln and the bomber group would do once in position, assuming Iran doesn’t lash out.  He says Navy and Air Force leaders have constantly updated plans to counter any Iranian attempts to close the Straits of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and eventually the Indian Ocean.

“They could try to close it with surface-to-surface missiles and mines or their submarines or surface units and small boat swarms,” said Nash.

He also says the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which swears allegiance to Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khameini rather than the nation of Iran, is most likely to cause any mischief in the Persian Gulf.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Nash’s analysis on message Bolton is sending Iran, why Iran is looking to attack us, and how Iran is likely reacting to its plot being exposed.

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Prime Time Trump, Slowing the Shift in Syria, Corey Calls It Quits

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Listen to “Prime Time Trump, Slowing the Shift in Syria, Stewart Quits Politics” on Spreaker.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see President Trump making a detailed case for border wall funding in tonight’s televised address, a more effective strategy than tweets and sound bites.  They also like National Security Adviser John Bolton’s clarification that the Trump administration does want to get our troops out of Syria but we also have no intention of letting ISIS grow again or letting Turkey slaughter the Kurds.  They slam the door behind failed Virginia GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, who says he will not run for re-election to his local office and is getting out of politics.  And Jim is in rare form as he and Greg discuss the fact that every year is an election year in Virginia.

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Bolton Lauds Trump’s First Year, Warns of Big Decision Needed in ’18

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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Trump did an excellent job of identifying and confronting the greatest threats to national security in 2017, but warns those threats still persist and Trump will likely have to make a fateful decision in the coming year.

Trump is the first president in U.S. history never to hold prior public office or serve in the military.  Nonetheless, Bolton says Trump quickly got his “sea legs” and emerged with a foreign policy that should be recognizable to most Americans.

“I think it has been very much in the mainstream of conservative Republican thinking.  That may upset some of his supporters and some of his opponents, but the fact is it’s been a responsible foreign policy.  It’s corrected so many mistakes from the Obama administration,” said Bolton.

“In particular, I think Trump’s view of the threat posed by Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs is probably the most important,” added Bolton.  “Decertifying the Iran nuclear deal and the very tough line he’s taken with respect to North Korea are very important.”

The North Korean nuclear threat reared its head many times in 2017, with the Kim Jong-Un regime firing off numerous missile tests that performed competently enough to convince top U.S. intelligence officials that the window of opportunity for diplomacy is quickly closing.

“CIA Director Mike Pompeo said sometime back that North Korea could be within months of getting the capability to hit the United States with thermonuclear warheads carried by ballistic missiles,” said Bolton.

As of now, Bolton says the U.S. still has multiple options for dealing with North Korea, but none of them appear very attractive.  He says Trump will have likely have to make the toughest decision any president has to make sometime  in 2018.

I don’t think there’s any serious dispute that in the next 12 months we’re going to have to make a very important, very hard, very unpleasant decision over whether we allow North Korea to have this capability to threaten us from now as far as the eye can see, threaten Japan, threaten South Korea and sell that capability to anybody with enough money to pay,” said Bolton.

He says Iran, ISIS, Al Qaeda and other bad actors could well end up as customers of the North Korean regime.  He says the other option will be using military force to achieve Trump’s demand for the denuclearization of the communist state.

“This isn’t a choice President Trump wanted to make.  Nobody wants to make it.  It’s unattractive whichever option you pick.  But it’s a consequence of 25 years failure on the part of American foreign policy,” said Bolton, a clear criticism of the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations in dealing with the emerging threat.

Bolton stresses the decision is not just limited to North Korea.  He says failing to check Kim now could have massive worldwide consequences.

“We’re very nearly at the stage where our ability to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons will have failed irretrievably and that’s not a happy place to be.  It’s going to be in the Trump administration where these key decisions are made.  So in the new year, all of us are going to have to be thinking about what we think is best for the country,” said Bolton.

Another major accomplishment in recent months is the rout of ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria at the hands of U.S. air power, American coordination on the ground and the fighting of Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

Bolton is dumbfounded at how little coverage this accomplishment gets in the mainstream media.  Regardless, he says the impact of the military success is significant.

“It’s a very significant victory.  It was critical to eliminate the physical caliphate that ISIS had set up,” said Bolton.  “To deny ISIS that base of operations.  It’s very, very important.  It just means the war on terrorism into a different phase.”

“The next question in the region is how to deal with Iran, making sure that they’re not empowered by the defeat of ISIS to extend their control as they’re trying to do with some success through Iraq, through (Bashar) Assad’s regime in Syria, through Hezbollah in Lebanon, all the way to the Mediterranean,” said Bolton, who also urges Trump to scrap the Iran nuclear deal once and for all.

The former ambassador to the UN also weighed in on the recent uproar in the General Assembly as 128 nations voted to approve a non-binding resolution declaring America’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel “null and void.”  Just nine nations (including the U.S. and Israel) voted against the resolution and 35 countries abstained.

Ambassador Nikki Haley said the U.S. would take note of those countries looking to strip our nation of its sovereignty.  And Trump has suggested those nations might see less foreign aid in the years to come.

Bolton likes the American response.

“For two long, countries had a completely free hand at the United Nations.  They could denounce the United States.  They could attack our allies.  They could vote against us.  It was all cost-free to them.  So it shouldn’t be any surprise to us that their behavior in many respects was purely irresponsible,” said Bolton.

“I think if the president follows through and says we’re going to make sure there are consequences, it’s a potential game-changer, and not just directed at the countries that vote the wrong way but to use this as a wedge for substantial change in the way we fund the United Nations itself,” said Bolton.

But as 2018 dawns, Bolton says the far more immediate priorities are what do do about the emerging nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran.

“I expect 2018 to be a year of considerable activity,” said Bolton.

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‘The Obama Era in American Foreign Policy Is Over’

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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is praising President Trump for ordering a missile strike against a key Syrian airfield in response to Syria’s latest use of chemical weapons against it’s own people, and Bolton says it tells the rest of the world that this administration sees the world much differently than the last one.

“The Obama era in American foreign policy is over and there’s a president in the White House with a very different worldview,” said Bolton, pointing to Obama’s repeated threats of military action in response to using chemical weapons.

He says the Syrians, Russians, and Iranians clearly didn’t expect Trump to act so decisively.

“I think they’re so stunned that Trump acted, given the performance of Obama over the years, saying that that he would view even the movement of chemical weapons as a red line and not enforcing it,” said Bolton.

On Thursday, Trump green-lighted the launch of 59 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles from American ships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  The missiles targeted Shayrat Air Base, the installation from which the latest chemical weapons attacks were launched.

Reaction has not fallen along traditional lines.  Mainstream Republicans and many liberals are hailing the decision, while some of Trump’s most ardent supporters during the campaign were very critical.

Bolton believes it was the right call.

“Anytime you have an authoritarian regime like this that joins a treaty like the Chemical Weapons Convention, says it will give up these weapons of mass destruction and lies about it and uses the weapons, that is a direct threat to the national security of the United States,” said Bolton.

He is also hopeful that other bad actors around the world will act differently when they see the consequences of Syria’s behavior.

“It’s important around the world that people know that we’re simply not going to tolerate countries entering these treaties and then violating them by using weapons against innocent civilians.  I think it’ll have an impact well beyond Syria.  I think North Korea and Iran, in particular, should draw a lesson from this.  I think China and Russia should as well,” said Bolton.

But is this an isolated strike or the start to a more entangled involvement in the region once again?  Bolton says Trump’s actions are unlikely to trigger a slippery slope of U.S. engagement.  He also says the region is about to look a bit differently and the U.S. must be positioned well.

“We’re going to defeat ISIS, hopefully in a short period of time, maybe by the end of the year.  We need to think ahead to what the Middle East is going to look like post-ISIS and I certainly hope it does not include a Russian airbase at Latakia in Syria, which the Obama administration allowed them to have,” said Bolton.

 

Bolton says this episode should make it clear that assertions of Trump being a Vladimir Putin stooge were grossly unfounded.

“I think this is very interesting commentary for all those in Washington that basically argued that Trump was a Manchurian candidate with his strings pulled by Moscow.  That’s not quite the way this has worked out,” said Bolton.

The timing of the strike played out in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons, but Bolton says launching the mission while the Chinese president is in the U.S. sends a direct message about North Korea as well.

“It was more than an amazing coincidence that President Xi Xinping of China was in Mar-A-Lago with President Trump when he decided on the airstrike against Syria, certainly people have looked at that possibility with respect to North Korea,” said Bolton.

He says there is great urgency for Trump and Xi to act on North Korea as the communist nation’s nuclear program and missile system continue to advance.

“They’re so far advanced toward putting a nuclear device on an intercontinental ballistic missile and hitting targets on the west coast of the United States in the very near future.  Some people have estimated that to mean next year,” said Bolton.

Bolton believes the common ground for Trump and Xi would be for the two Koreas to be united again and erase the nuclear menace.

Standard Podcast [ 9:34 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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