Recently, President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser John Bolton abruptly left the White House under much less than amicable terms — and Axios is now reporting on part of why that split took place. According to the publication, Bolton first offered his resignation following a suggestion from Trump to deliver a $15 billion bailout to Iran meant to help relieve pressure from sanctions and as leverage to try and get them to stick with a nuclear deal they signed in recent years with Western powers including the U.S. The problem is — it’s the Trump administration that themselves pulled out of the deal first, and in the time since, Iran has insisted they’re not interested in getting messed around.
Still, Axios reports:
‘Former national security adviser John Bolton resigned the day after a Monday discussion about Iran policy in which President Trump raised the possibility of relieving some sanctions, a person close to Bolton tells Axios.’
According to other testimony from that same individual, Bolton believes the “maximum pressure campaign” currently underway against Iran is “working.” Oh really? Is that why the Iranians completely ditched even any pretense of the deal Trump (with Bolton’s major help) torpedoed and started building up their radioactive material again? They insist that they’re not attempting to transform those stockpiles into weapons to use against the U.S. and others, but if in light of the precedent of harsh anti-Western rhetoric from Iran, Trump and others want to dial the country’s capabilities back — they’re failing. And now Trump has apparently considered delivering a bailout to the Iranians to try and get things back on track.
There’s another key issue whose shadow has covered Bolton’s departure — that of Afghanistan. Last weekend, Trump had planned to host the Taliban at Camp David for peace talks covering the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. These eventually cancelled peace talk plans would have gotten underway days before the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks whose perpetrators the Taliban has assisted, besides killing Americans on their own time, too. Bolton reportedly disagreed with the president’s plan to host the group anyway, as did figures as high as Vice President Mike Pence himself, apparently. Lower-level Republicans largely split over the issue.
As for Trump, he hasn’t been too specific about what led to Bolton’s departure — which he claims was a firing and Bolton has claimed to anyone who’d listen was a resignation. Trump has just cited broad disagreements, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did the same at a press conference the day after the departure.
One source told The Daily Beast, discussing Pompeo’s take:
‘By the end he viewed him as an arsonist hell bent on setting fire to anyone’s agenda that didn’t align with his own — including the president’s… A talented guy, no doubt, but not someone who was willing to subordinate his ego to the president’s foreign-policy agenda.’
The idea that Bolton is the only one with an ego problem here is definitely off. Has this person ever heard of a guy named Donald Trump’s Twitter feed?
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