Just as I was making notes for an article on the delirious foreign policy of President Donald Trump under the influence of National Security advisor John Bolton, which is not only a fiasco that has endangered world peace, but in addition was reducing to zero the possibility of a re-election of Trump in 2020, in a tweet from the inhabitant of the White House a star of sanity shone, this September 10. “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration.”

According to the dispatches of news agencies that cite sources from the White House, Trump had profound disagreements with the “mustached” Bolton on questions of foreign policy. This was evident in the virtual derailing of negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Korea, as with the possibility of finding a terrain of agreement with Iran and an exit from the bottleneck they encountered with their aggressive policies in Venezuela, without speaking of Russia, China and the arm-twisting of reluctant allies.

Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, who has been very critical of the Trump’s bellicose foreign policy, qualified the sacking of Bolton as a “necessary action”, adding that: “The President has great instincts on foreign policy and ending our endless wars. He should be served by those who share those views.”

It is obvious that if the exit of Bolton was due to profound disagreements, then it should imply changes of officials in the National Security apparatus, beginning with Elliot Abrams and other sinister persons from the era of George W. Bush.

At first sight, and having reflected on the deterioration of the panorama for a reelection in 2020, due to the consequences of the trade war with China, the situation with Iran that is close to a point of no return, and the senseless policy of Colombia towards Venezuela, among other serious affairs that threaten world and/or regional peace, one might think that the “instinct” that Senator Rand Paul attributes to Trump will bring him to a foreign policy that is more realistic and less aggressive, even though it may only be in order to stop the light hemorrhage of support for Trump indicated by opinion polls in the United States.

In the coming days, and with the naming of a new National Security advisor, we shall see if this dismissal implies that Trump is cutting the umbilical cord that, from the outset of his mandate, has united him with the sub-world of neo-conservatives.

In any case, the orientation that Bolton gave to the “pack boat” of US foreign policy will not change rapidly and, given the bipolar character of the inhabitant of the White House, it is evident that the interlocutors, be they Russians, Chinese, Iranians or Venezuelans, will open a period of “standby”.

10/09/2019

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)

- Alberto Rabilotta is an Argentine Canadian journalist.