Other Nations Are Worried About Trump Appointing John Bolton As National Security Adviser

The diplomatic world is rife with worry after President Trump tweeted that he would replace sitting national security adviser H.R. McMaster with John Bolton, CNN reported. While reports that McMaster was in danger of being replaced were circling through mainstream media, the identity of his replacement was a mystery until Trump broke the news via Twitter. Diplomatic officials are now wondering how this appointment could affect issues such as the North Korean summit proposal and the Iran nuclear deal.

One South Korean official called the appointment “worrisome,” while Japan’s foreign minister said that he was a bit surprised by the selection.

Anxiety coming from Asian officials is understandable, given the fact that in the past, the hawkish John Bolton proposed a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, Business Insider reported. Indeed, Bolton has been highly critical of South Korea’s attempt to make peace with the North, claiming that the South was “like putty in North Korea’s hands.”

Some critics are worried that Bolton’s more aggressive stances will jeopardize U.S. efforts to use diplomatic measures against North Korea’s growing nuclear threat. Earlier this month, Donald Trump agreed to meet the Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un for talks in May (previously April, but officials convinced Trump to postpone). Some South Korean officials are worried that Bolton’s views may anger the North Koreans and frustrate any future diplomatic talks.

“We will have to see if Bolton opens his mouth and launches his verbal attacks against the North,” said Lee Byong-chul, senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul. He continued, “That will give North Korea an excuse to step away from its summit proposal. The Trump-Bolton team then will ramp up pressure. And we will hear more talk about a pre-emptive strike and see tensions rising again on the Korean Peninsula.”

The subject of Iran’s nuclear deal is also a topic of interest for the new national security adviser. Mr. Bolton has gone on record saying that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal should be renegotiated or in the alternative, scrapped altogether, The New York Times reported. In this respect, Bolton is in agreement with both President Trump and the newly nominated Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

Bolton is no stranger to criticizing Iran, to the point of advocating military action against the country. For evidence of this, one needs to look no further than the opinion piece he wrote for The New York Times titled “To Stop Iran, Bomb Iran.” The piece argued for a regime change in Iran through military action, even proposing the idea of outsourcing the conflict to Israel.

While they agree on some key points, Bolton’s ideals are not completely in line with Trump’s. Bolton, a former Fox News commentator, has been a harsh critic of Russia and Vladimir Putin, while the President has been hesitant to bad-mouth the Kremlin in hopes of maintaining good relations with them. Moreover, Bolton has been an ardent proponent of the war in Iraq, a conflict which President Trump claims was a mistake. It should be noted that while Trump claims that he was against the war in Iraq since before it started, Snopes reported that six months before the war, Trump was asked whether or not the U.S. should invade Iraq and Trump responded with “Yeah, I guess so.”

When faced with the litany of examples of his hawkish nature, John Bolton doesn’t seem bothered. Instead, the future national security adviser says that all his past comments are “behind” him.

“The important thing is what the President says and the advice I give him,” Bolton concluded.