Impeach John Bolton?
Thursday May 30, 2019
“We’re not looking for regime change [in Iran]. I want to make that clear,” President Trump said Monday at a news conference in Japan, “nobody wants to see terrible things happen, especially me.” That’s good to hear, but has Trump’s National Security Advisor gotten the message?
It’s the undeterrable John Bolton, after all, who’s been at the epicenter of the rumors of war plaguing Washington in recent weeks. It’s Bolton who ordered up a Pentagon plan for “retaliatory and offensive options” to check Iran, including a 120,000 troop surge to the region, and Bolton who blustered that a recent carrier-strike-group deployment signaled America’s willingness to meet any Iranian challenge with “unrelenting force.”
Trump is said to be frustrated by his aide’s brinksmanship, privately cracking that “if it was up to John, we’d be in four wars now.” “In recent days,” the New York Times reports this morning, “the disconnect between Mr. Trump and his national security adviser has spilled over into public,” with the president undercutting Bolton on Iran and North Korea. But Bolton still has his job. Ironically enough, it turns out that the longtime “Apprentice” host is gun-shy about firing people.
Is there anything Congress can do about a rogue presidential appointee that the president won’t fire? The progressive foreign-policy group Win Without War has an interesting proposal: they’re running a petition drive: “Tell Congress: Impeach John Bolton!”
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