[TangledUpInBlue]

He’s always been a hawk

[ifinnegan]

New Yorker.

Crazy leftist rag, DNC mouthpiece.

[lee martell]

This is not the time for the USA to get bogged down into yet another war. We still haven’t settled what GHWB started in the 1990’s! We don’t need declaration of a war to pull us together as a people. There must be other, more cost effect ways to show patriotism. I suspect John Bolton may decide to leave if he doesn’t get his way. There are moments that require a J. Bolton style war hawk. This is not such a time.

[gaijin]

FOUR wars already now, why not make it five..?

Why not make it TEN thousand invading the US every night..?

[Sacajaweau]

https://www.thenation.com/article/hillarys-hawks-are-threatening-war-against-north-korea/

[Migraine]

he took a moment in the State of the Union address to congratulate himself on a diplomatic masterstroke:

That's right dexter filkins, you snide, arrogant son of a butch: he congratulated himself to counter the fact that you aholes in the coastal media swamp will never congratulate him. Indeed, you pantywaist dweebs will lay into him every single time you write about him; so yeah, he congratulates himself.

I congratulate him too, and piss in your dexterdweeb direction.

[Leaning Right]

There is a case to be made for armed intervention in North Korea and/or Iran.

But here’s the problem with folks like Bolton. They make the case for armed intervention pretty much everywhere. Spend blood here. Spend treasure there. That’s the kind of thing that helped bring down the Roman Empire.

[grania]

John Bolton has totally turned President Trump's agenda away from talking to world leaders to threatening wars based on mischief by folks (foreign and domestic) who benefit from them.

President Trump had the door wide open to a negotiation where South Korea could've brought North Korea to a new place, where peace and prosperity overwhelmed militaristic tendencies. I'm disappointed that President Trump is doing the war dance.

[montag813]

I wish Bolton and Rubio had shut their mouths about Venezuela. Maduro was headed for complete destruction with Russia and china pissed off at him, before they convinced Trump to take that assclown Guaido’s side. Now Maduro is energized and enjoying fresh support, troops and cash from Russia, China and Turkey.

[Alberta's Child]

If you analyzed Bolton’s background objectively, you’d come to the inevitable conclusion that he is a Sunni Muslim who is also a major shareholder in every U.S. military contractor. This dope shouldn’t even be allowed to clean toilets in the White House.

[Openurmind]

Bolton is a frontman and slaesman for the MIC just like McCain was. Trump starts cutting into their profits and this is the retaliation for it. They WILL profit no matter what it takes.

[Seruzawa]

Is John Bolton going to carry a rifle?

I thought not.

[The Toll]

Silly to think about foreign wars when your homeland is being invaded and your population replaced.

[nathanbedford]

Clearly, those who have replied in this thread have learned well the lessons of the Iraq war. That is all to the good. I published my own mea culpa some years ago outlining my disillusionment with the war and noting the futility of many of these incursions.

However, I also noted that one of the false lessons of Iraq was that all incursions are necessarily ill advised. That is to over learn the lessons of the Iraq war. If we abandon all use of military force, especially if we let the world know, as Obama did, that we have no intention of resorting to force, we have no leverage with bloodthirsty dictators who can smell weakness.

With respect to John Bolton, I think we ought to discount much of the treatment he received in this article considering the source. The New Yorker is hardly the place to find any support for rational foreign policy. Rather it is a place to find cheap and easy shots designed to insert a wedge into the Trump administration and between Trump and his base. If in the process The New Yorker can paint the Trump administration as incompetent, all the better for them.

Equally, I think we ought to understand that it is entirely within Trump's methods to employ a "good cop, bad cop" tactic in which Bolton plays the hardliner while Trump keeps his options open even as he enjoys leverage in negotiation because of Bolton's public hardline.

Finally, there is a political advantage in letting Bolton take the political hit for belligerent remarks while Trump gains the leverage.