42 thoughts on “John Bolton and the Coming Collapse of the Trump Presidency – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. ‘Just like neoconservatives once demanded, “let Reagan be Reagan,” now Trump can be truly his own (crazy) man.’

    Be fair. If only you were right.

    The problem isn’t that Trump is going to be his own crazy man. Trump’s crazy man has many flaws, but he could care less about Iran.

    The problem is that Trump is going to be Sheldon Adelson’s crazy man. Sheldon cares about Iran.

  2. When you think about it, the concept of John Bolton as a ‘national security advisor’ is kind of an oxymoron.

    He could have all kinds of effects — but enhancing our national security is decidedly not one of them. I mean seriously. If this was 1953, having a hard-nosed Cold Warrior in the White House could arguably have its points.

    But it’s not 1953, there is no lowering Soviet empire, and people like John Bolton are the problem, not the solution. All he can do is CAUSE terrorist attacks, lead us into evil and futile wars, destroy our international position. He’s a goddamned menace — and worse, he’s been chosen because he’s a menace. He’s not going to be reined in; he’s going to be let off the leash.

  3. ‘…But even if Democrats are given control of one or both Houses of Congress, at least they can exercise a strong brake on Trump’s worst impulses…’

    That’s exactly where you’re wrong. Whenever Trump has acted in a way Israel approves of — when he moves our embassy to Jerusalem, when he bangs the drum for war with Iran — the Democrats go mute, and the press is muzzled.

    He could squeeze the Charmin, and Congress and the Washington Post would freak out — do freak out. But when he does as Israel wishes, the Democrats and the mainstream media become mysteriously muted in their criticism.

    Trump could do all kinds of things. Some of them I actually like. One thing that he can do that I definitely DO NOT like is get us into war in Iran — and that’s precisely where the Democrats are quite incapable of restraining him.

    Honestly. Look at all the people lining up to publically denounce Mike Pompeo. Oh yeah — there aren’t any. Precisely my point.

  4. Thank you so much for this critically important news and analysis. Oh, the horror!…. We have just had a Zionist Coup of the US government.

    1. ‘We have just had a Zionist Coup of the US government.’

      Yeah. Gaslight went out a while back, too. Try to keep up.

    2. @ Occupy on!:

      We have just had a Zionist Coup

      I’d prefer calling it a Likudist coup, if it’s anything. But I do believe that Bolton presents some of the same problems that Flynn presented. Bolton is in bed with so many interests which all have financial and political angles in terms of getting their way with U.S. policy–I think Mueller will have a new figure to investigate.

      1. “We have just had a Zionist Coup”

        ‘I’d prefer calling it a Likudist coup’

        Richard. You condone this bald-faced lie. A lie that feeds into the pernicious ‘Jews are controlling the government’ lie.

        Pompeo, Bolton, et al, were not Trump’s first choices. They’ve become powerful, more by happenstance than by design.

        Trump is tactless, narrow-minded, short sighted and unimaginative. He is a foolish man who probably rues the day he decide to run for the Presidency.
        Thus, It should be obvious from the disarray, that Trump and Trump alone is running the White House. He may run the country down, but he is doing it alone. There is no Dick Cheney like figure working behind the scenes. No cabal, either

        It is Trump and Trump alone.

        1. @ Doctor John: You’re hilarious. You and your friends in the Lobby get your fingers around America’s throat and cultivate lunatics like Bolton to be your attack dogs and then you cry weepy tears when someone calls a spade a spade. If you didn’t want to hear that phrase you should’ve thought’ve of what you were doing to American politics by letting loose oligarchs like Adelson and their political hit-men like Bolton.

          Personally, I don’t think this is much of a coup. Americans elected Trump. He’s just being Trump. But Trump is a lapdog of the Lobby as well. So if you’re looking for sympathy you’ll have to find it somewhere else.

          The Lobby now runs U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Whatever Israel’s far right wants it will get. You’ve sown the seeds, now reap the whirlwind.

          Do not comment further in this thread.

        2. ‘“We have just had a Zionist Coup”

          ‘I’d prefer calling it a Likudist coup’

          Richard. You condone this bald-faced lie. A lie that feeds into the pernicious ‘Jews are controlling the government’ lie.’

          Quite right, Doctor John. I mean, just draw up a list of prominent Neo-Cons. I’m sure the percentage of Jews among them is just about what it is in the general population — about 2%.

          There’s a great deal to be said about this — but the discussion won’t wind up in a place you like. However, if Richard wants to let me post a ‘guest blog’ of about fifty thousand words, we can go there.

          But there. MUSTN’T speak, eh, Doctor John? Muzzle that discussion and let the wheels turn. Label anyone who says anything an ‘anti-semite’ and on to Teheran.

          Or have I misunderstood you in some way?

          1. [comment deleted–I deleted your comment since it wasn’t substantive and violated the three comment a day rule]

          2. [comment deleted: comment rules indicate that I edit the blog and make the rules. Disputing the rules here is a waste of your and my time. If you don’t like them, you know where you can go…]

  5. ‘…But once something like a Srebrenica happens in the Middle East, there will be no more looking the other way…’

    Oh, I wouldn’t care to bet on that. Let’s not. Hard on the test sample.

    1. There is a Srebrenica happening right now, and it’s called North Korea.
      Trump and Bolton are at least doing something about North Korea. They are not shoving it under the rug.

      1. @ Dr. John:

        Trump and Bolton are at least doing something about North Korea.

        More nonsense. Bolton’s way of doing something is to threaten a nuclear attack against Iran and North Korea. ‘Doing something’ means annihilating half of Asia, potentially.

      2. ‘There is a Srebrenica happening right now, and it’s called North Korea.
        Trump and Bolton are at least doing something about North Korea. They are not shoving it under the rug.’

        Oh honestly. Something WAS getting done about North Korea. Trump was going to meet Kim III. China was finally enforcing sanctions.

        Pompeo and Bolton had nothing to do with that. If anything, they’re coming in to fix this and get American foreign policy back where it belongs — serving Israel’s psychoses by starting a war with Iran.

        You COULD at least be truthful. You’re certainly not for Pompeo and Bolton because they’ll ‘do something about North Korea.’ We both know that.

  6. The problem with your “let things get really bad so they can finally get better” thesis is that people have a short memory. 8 years after Bush, American elected Trump!
    And Obama was overall an excellent President who was elected by large majorities twice.
    So go explain.
    While it’s true that political trends are cyclical, I don’t think that the cycles occur because things get so bad. Were things so bad under Obama?
    People just get tired of one approach and then try another. Americans have ADHD and simply get bored after 4-8 years. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know. Whatever Trump does, I suspect a liberal backlash in due time.

    This is unlike Israel in which the electorate has a more nuanced but consistent approach. They don’t change directions every few years like Americans do. They tried Oslo, it failed, and now a majority don’t believe in a peace deal. Its been that way for 20 years already. Very few other issues divide Israelis. Things like health care, guns, abortion, welfare, climate change or taxes-which dumb Americans go insane about–are pretty much resolved in Israeli society. (We Israelis make fun of Americans about this) The role of religion is still contentious, but there is pretty much a large majority who feels a certain way about that.

    1. @ Yehuda:

      This is unlike Israel in which the electorate has a more nuanced but consistent approach.

      Sureliy you jest. Nuanced? Howso? There is no nuance in Israeli politics. There never was. But since 1977 it’s become far worse.

      They tried Oslo, it failed

      THey never “tried” Oslo. Israel never honored the terms of the Oslo accords. Oslo failed because Israel flouted it.

      Very few other issues divide Israelis.

      Nonsense. Israelis are divided on huge issues: secularism vs religion; economic equity vs. oligarchy; corruption vs transparency. Not to mention the issues on which there may be agreement in society, but these issues cannot be resolved because of structural obstacles inherent in Israeli society (see above).

      The role of religion is still contentious, but there is pretty much a large majority who feels a certain way about that

      It doesn’t matter what a majority or large majority think on the issue of religion. Structurally, the Orthodox have a stranglehold over Israeli politics. They cannot be dislodged. So it doesn’t matter what the average Israeli thinks. And if you think this predicament is “smart” or less dumb than any predicament facing America, you’re nuts.

      BTW, I do think we here have structural problems that defy easy solutions: guns and the Israel Lobby are among the most intractable. Poverty and race are two others.

      dumb Americans

      If you want to talk “dumb” Israelis are far dumber. They’re locked in a death vise with their neighbors which threatens the country’s existence. That’s dumber than dumb. And if you insult Americans that crassly again you’ll never publish another comment here.

      I don’t want to get into a back and forth on this issue with you. I don’t have the patience for it. So do not comment further in this thread.

      1. ‘Surely you jest. Nuanced? Howso? There is no nuance in Israeli politics. There never was. But since 1977 it’s become far worse.’

        Be fair. There are nuances in Israeli politics. It’s what the nuances are between that is the problem.

        On the far left, we have good folks whose ideal for the Palestinians would probably be something along the lines of blacks in America in 1910; happy (and powerless) darkies. No problem, move along. We’re for their improvement. Where’s their Booker T. Washington?

        In the middle left, we have the earnest advocates of some sort of Bantustan in the West Bank. Not as large or as independent as Transkei of course — but the same basic idea.

        On the middle middle and the right we have…but that would be hurtful to discuss. Let’s just let everyone decide for themselves who’s analogous to the Israeli right. However, again to be fair, there continue to be nuances. Some are probably perplexed as to how to reach a solution. Others have no doubts at all.

        This is, incidentally, perhaps one strand in this whole ‘drang nach Teheran’ nonsense. If there is a huge blow-up, Israel can implement a final solution to the Palestinian problem. She’s used wars this way in the past.

        1. @ Colin WRight:

          On the far left, we have good folks whose ideal for the Palestinians would probably be something along the lines of blacks in America in 1910; happy (and powerless) darkies.

          That’s completely off. The Israeli far left is the Joint List, an overwhelmingly Israeli-Palestinian party. It certainly doesn’t reflect your claim. Perhaps you’re talking about Meretz which is the Zionist left, i.e. not really left. Perhaps equivalent to the Democratic Party in the U.S.

          At any rate, I’m not going to quibble with you about this since Meretz hasn’t a hope in hell of governing or even being in a ruling coalition. IT is irrelevant and is almost every party to the left of Likud.

          1. Richard:

            The joint list is a Palestinian grouping. The Palestinians are effectively excluded from
            political power; no Jewish party forms a coalition with them.

            To return to the metaphor, there was a black congressman as late as 1907. There’s your joint list.

            You say I’m ‘completely off.’ Au contraire; even if I’ve over-simplified, the problem is not that I’m ‘completely off’, but that I’m all too close to the mark.

    2. “8 years after Bush, American elected Trump!”
      The American population did not elect either of them, the electoral college did. Neither of them won the popular vote, which is in a representative democracy would normally de decisive..

      “This is unlike Israel in which the electorate has a more nuanced but consistent approach. They don’t change directions every few years like Americans do.”

      You have a coalition system, just as in my country. America has a two party winner takes all system, You are comparing apples and oranges and presenting the outcomes that are inherent in the different systems as differences in the mentality of the population.

      1. Elisabeth, I agree. We here are locked in a different death vice. I don’t see how we change that even if Richard’s “things have to get worse before they get better philosophy works”, it can only work somewhat.
        Suffering works, but it has to be at home. War does not arouse us anymore. It’s over there- we turn it off, don’t even know.

        My faith in the American polity has suffered greatly after Obama.
        We have seen the vulnerability of the electorate to demagoguery and lies and actual “fake news”. We now have minority rule, structurally developed. What most of the people in this country want matters not.
        We see how much power a president has,what powers we have invested in this office as we took for granted normalcy, decency, and a modicum of continuity of those. We see how craven a Congress can be abdicating it’s duty to check and balance.

    3. ‘ …Things like health care, guns, abortion, welfare, climate change or taxes-which dumb Americans go insane about–are pretty much resolved in Israeli society…’

      Cough, cough. I’ll hang our collective head with respect to Sweden et al when it comes to such issues, but Israel?

      You deal with health care and welfare et al by simply herding the bulk of your Palestinian subjects onto reservations in the West Bank and Gaza where — to put it mildly — they don’t receive full benefits, and you handle taxes by getting massive subsidies from the US. Who should we go to for such payments — and gee — never realized how cheap health care for our Indians could be.

      As to guns, isn’t the idea Jews get to have them and can shoot Palestinians with impunity? Or have I missed something?

      In general, Israel as the ideal society? Come on, guy — it’s a dystopian nightmare. Look how you can’t even get Jews to emigrate there — and it’s supposed to be for them.

      1. @ Colin Wright:

        it’s a dystopian nightmare

        I regret to say it’s a dystopian nightmare only for Palestinians. For Israeli Jews? Not so much. They’re arranged things so that they work quite nicely for the average Israeli. Of course, we have to leave out Haredi Jews as well since they largely live in poverty, though that’s more of their own choosing. And they do get a lot of welfare from their political parties handed out by the government.

  7. The thing that needs to be recognized here is that consciously or not, Israel and the Israel Lobby feels compelled to bring about a major and prolonged war in the Middle East.

    And it needs to be a major and prolonged war because the alternative is peace, and peace leads inexorably leads to one of two things; either a pluralistic, secular state in all of Palestine in which Jews may be very big players but certainly won’t have a monopoly of power, or two states. And two states leads back to what are Israel’s legal borders? And those borders are what they have always been: the 1947 partition boundaries. Ceasefire agreements and bilateral treaties don’t supersede those.

    Israel cannot — will not — bring herself to accept any of the above. So it has to be war, and prolonged war. And needs two players: the US, and Iran.

    Too bad for the US and Iran. We’re off! Get the kiddies into the car.

    1. “The thing that needs to be recognized here is that consciously or not, Israel and the Israel Lobby feels compelled to bring about a major and prolonged war in the Middle East.”

      More garbage.

      Israel signed peace treaties with two of her enemies, Egypt and Jordan.
      Israel evacuated Southern Lebanon and Gaza and signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. Israel even entered into negotiations with Syria over the fate of the Golan Heights.

      1. @ Doctor John: I smell the garbage and it’s coming from you, pal. Israel has longed for war against Iran for over a decade. And with Bolton in the driver’s seat of U.S. national security policy, we’re liable to get a U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran; perhaps even an invasion to force regime change–an approach Bolton has advocated.

        Let’s not forget the series of wars Israel started over the past 70 years. As for Syria, entering into negotiations doesn’t count for shit. Anyone can do that. But not anyone can sign an agreement and honor it. Israel hasn’t done that since 1979.

        Again, you’re done in this thread.

      2. ‘More garbage.

        Israel signed peace treaties with two of her enemies, Egypt and Jordan.
        Israel evacuated Southern Lebanon and Gaza and signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. Israel even entered into negotiations with Syria over the fate of the Golan Heights.’

        Garbage indeed. Israel has not evacuated Gaza so much as taken to operating it as a kind of giant, soft-core Warsaw Ghetto. Would you say the Germans had ‘evacuated the Warsaw Ghetto’ because they walled it off and left the inhabitants to starve?

        She was DRIVEN out of Lebanon, and I remember when Jimmy Carter twisted her arm until she signed the peace with Egypt.

        As to Jordan, Israel signed a peace treaty with her — after Jordan agreed to surrender her claim to the West Bank. Come to that, we signed a peace treaty with Mexico in 1848 and after the Spanish American War. We were pretty pacific ourselves back in the day.

        Jordan’s about as good as it gets, too. Otherwise, it’s been relentless aggression, virtually unprovoked by any civilized standard. Israel has invaded or attacked Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran — all with pretexts that haven’t sufficed for anyone else since 1945. For example, how many nations has the US bombed because we thought they were building a nuclear reactor?

        1. ‘…For example, how many nations has the US bombed because we thought they were building a nuclear reactor?’

          Admittedly, responding to my own posts is pushing my luck, but…

          There’s more to be said on this.

          Of course, we HAVE attacked one state at least supposedly because of its ‘WMD’s’ if not nuclear program, precisely.

          That was Iraq. But it is indeed relevant that the Israel Lobby was a major element in that decision. What’s more, now we’re threatening to do it a second time — to Iran.

          And again, who is who really wants that? I hoe the whole Iran thing will fizzle — but it’ll fizzle in spite of Israel, not because of it.

          Israel aside, we — and every other state — adhere to a certain sense of legality. We have stood by and watched with varying degrees of disapproval one state after another acquire nuclear weapons: the Soviet Union, Britain (we actually didn’t like that either), France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and now North Korea.

          Sigh. We do everything we perceive we legally or surreptitiously can — sanctions, technology embargoes, bribes — but we don’t BOMB them. That would be wrong, you see.

          Israel feels no such compunction. As in other matters, she simply seems to lack any sense of legality. She’s cheerily fired away at both Syria and Iraq, and probably would bomb Iran, if it wasn’t that it wasn’t such a manifestly bad idea.

          If your neighbor’s kid annoys you, you talk to his parents. Conceivably, you call the police. But you don’t SHOOT him. That’s a concept Israel seems to be missing. She has conferred on herself an absolute, unfettered right to commit any act at all, if it suits her.

  8. There’s another aspect to it as well: the ‘enemy at the gates’ syndrome.

    All nations — maybe all forms of human organization — tend to need an external enemy. It creates — if only by contrast — internal unity. Moreover, the weaker the reality of the state’s nationhood, the greater that need.

    …and Israel’s nationhood is very, very weak. Even leaving aside the Palestinian helots, the various flavors of Jew won’t even send their kids to the same schools — and have you ever read the abuse the Ha’aretz crowd heaps on the ultra-orthodox when they let themselves go? Ashkenazim and Sephardis; German, Moroccan, Iraqi, and Yemeni Jews, etc, etc. Wishful thinking or no, this is NOT one people. Nationhood can only be maintained with a regular return to the ramparts — which, not at all coincidentally, happens. What’s the longest period of anything resembling ‘peace’ Israel has tolerated?

    An external enemy is imperative. This was particularly clearly illustrated a few years back when there were huge housing demonstrations or something — and then there was a curiously successful ‘terrorist attack,’ and an ensuing slaughter of a hundred or two Gazans, and everyone calmed down.

    The great upcoming war with Hezbollah and Iran is going to serve the same purpose — only on a giant scale. No more troubles, no more doubts. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

    1. [comment deleted: if hasbarists repeat anti-Iran arguments advanced here scores of times in the past and rebutted here as well, I won’t publish the 21st iteration of the very same false claims. I recommend studying the Hasbara Handbook closely. Any argument you find there has been used before here. That means you have to come up with something original–something almost impossible for you guys. But at least try.]

  9. The irony of it all is that at this point in her history, Israel really could obtain a wildly favorable settlement of all the issues in contention.

    The Palestinians themselves, and just about everybody else, would readily accept her borders being fixed not at half of historical Palestine, but at four fifths of it. Moreover, the Palestinian ‘state’ that would result could be hedged about with masses of restrictions on its sovereignty; it and most other parties would agree to it being perpetually unarmed, to accepting restrictions on its borders, to relinquishing control over its own airspace…

    The Palestian dream of paradise at this point has been reduced to just not having to grovel daily at a check point. Their demands are decidedly modest.

    But no. Out of her own irrational needs, Israel is going to push ahead with engineering the apocalypse. Worse, while this apocalypse won’t do anyone else much good either, it will most certainly end with the destruction of Israel.

    1. “The Palestinan dream of paradise at this point has been reduced to just not having to grovel daily at a check point. Their demands are decidedly modest.”

      True.

      “Out of her own irrational needs, Israel is going to push ahead with engineering the apocalypse.”

      Again true.

      I sometimes think that simply because all this stuff about a promised land was written thousands of years ago, and because Christianity added an end of days struggle to it, and because a large part of the population of the ‘promised’ land and ofthe most powerful nation on earth takes it seriously, we are heading towards an Armageddon. Not because things such as prophesies foretelling the future really exist, but because gullible people believe in it, and so their actions make it happen.

      1. ‘…I sometimes think that simply because all this stuff about a promised land was written thousands of years ago, and because Christianity added an end of days struggle to it, and because a large part of the population of the ‘promised’ land and ofthe most powerful nation on earth takes it seriously, we are heading towards an Armageddon. Not because things such as prophesies foretelling the future really exist, but because gullible people believe in it, and so their actions make it happen.’

        I think this is a decisive — if certainly not the only — element.

        Christian millenarism had a lot to to do with the widespread acceptance of Zionism in the first place. Worse, it’s one of the major forces legitimizing not a ‘nice’ Israel, but an Israel whose purpose is to bring on the apocalypse.

        Israel could be a state like some others I might name about which opinions would differ. Israel combined with the Christian millenarian vision is another matter entirely — and this is what’s driving much of what is going on. I’m sure one element in Trump’s Pompeo/Bolton/on to Teheran shift is that it’ll please AIPAC. However, the other element — and perhaps the more important one — is that it’ll please the Evangelicals.

        People think Trump is stupid. Ha, ha, ha. Ethically, this sucks, but as a political maneuver? Great play — at least in the short term. He’s massively solidifying two pillars of his support at once — and putting the Israel Lobby to good use muzzling his critics.

        However, the end result is the Zionist apocalypse, and that’s not something any of us can tolerate. We really don’t want to go any further down this road. At least, I don’t. It’d be mighty interesting to read about as something that happened in the middle past, but as a current event? No thanks.

  10. I checked, and I am in error.

    The last black Congressman’s term ended in 1901. From then until 1929, no blacks served in Congress.

  11. And sure enough…

    Trump’s latest shift is paying off. His last ten poll figures: 38, 42, 43, 40, 44, 41, 40, 46, 42, 45. The 38 was the first; and about what his average had been until recently. Counting the 38, his average over the last ten comes to just over 42% — a marked improvement.

    Pay off the Israel Lobby to mute the press and keep the Evangelicals happy. It’ll end with us in the most disastrous war in our history but hey. That’s politics.

  12. Richard says: ‘…Israel hasn’t done that since 1979…’

    Israel hasn’t honored the 1979 treaty either. Check out the clauses related to the Palestinians.

    …it gets almost dull. Has Israel EVER honored an agreement? It started with the Zionists assuring all and sundry circa 1920 that of course ‘a national homeland’ would never be taken to mean an independent state, and it’s gone on from there.

    In my opinion, you can get somewhere with Israel by firmly telling her — ala Eisenhower ordering her out of Sinai in 1956. But to think that you can get her word and therefore she’ll keep it is just foolishness.

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