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Credit to Author: Matt Laslo| Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 18:21:15 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n With the departure of John Bolton from the White House this week, even the former national security advisor\u2019s biggest critics are worried.<\/p>\n It was another tumultuous week for US national security<\/a>. Democrats are once again questioning President Donald Trump\u2019s fitness as commander in chief, while most Republicans shrugged off the criticisms and went about business as usual in Trumpland.<\/p>\n The week began with revelations, first reported by CNN<\/a>, that US intelligence agencies had pulled a high-level spy who gained the trust of senior officials inside the Kremlin, over fears the asset could be compromised. Then on Tuesday, the president jettisoned yet another national security advisor even as global conflicts, from Afghanistan and Iran to Venezuela, continue to simmer. The double whammy has lawmakers in at least one party worried that America is flying blind.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m shaken by the instability of American foreign policy today. I think it\u2019s super dangerous for us and the world,\u201d Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator from Connecticut, told reporters at the Capitol earlier this week, right as news broke\u2014via a presidential tweet<\/a>\u2014that John Bolton was no longer national security advisor. \u201cSomebody\u2019s got to convince this president to get his act together.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s no love lost between Democrats and Bolton. The former Fox News firebrand, who served as UN ambassador under President George W. Bush, was a surprise pick to be Trump\u2019s national security advisor. Bolton's hawkish tendencies could seem out of line with Trump\u2019s more dovish campaign rhetoric. On the other hand, Trump also ordered an air strike<\/a> inside Iran earlier this year, only to call it off at the last minute, and has advocated for regime change and US intervention in Venezuela. (The president tweeted<\/a> this week that his views on Venezuela are "far stronger" than Bolton's.)<\/p>\n \u201cI am glad Bolton left because I think he was a warmonger who did not look at the world through 20\/20 glasses. I think he looked at the world through a very distorted view, which had a way of exacerbating some of President Trump\u2019s worst tendencies,\u201d Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia, told WIRED. \u201cSo I think the fact that he is gone, regardless of anything else, makes the nation frankly safer and more secure.\u201d<\/p>\n "The idea that our allies have no one to talk to with consistency \u2026 is really dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Chris Murphy<\/p>\n For Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Trump and Bolton brought out each other\u2019s worst instincts. He said that Trump\u2019s hastily agreed-to meeting at Camp David with the Taliban this month, which fell apart<\/a> just as quickly over the weekend, was a serious blunder.<\/p>\n \u201cSo much is just ad hoc<\/em>. We don\u2019t get briefed on things\u2014nobody here, Democrat or Republican, really knew about the Taliban thing,\u201d Kaine added. \u201cAnd it looks like it might have been rushed, and maybe it was rushed in a way that will end up being really counterproductive to something that could have happened. So there is a level of chaos before, during, and after, but Bolton being gone is net positive.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, many Democratic lawmakers are troubled by the sudden departure. Bolton is now the third person to be cycled in and out of the national security advisor position in less than three years. Trump\u2019s first advisor, Michael Flynn, resigned amid scandal<\/a> just weeks into the president\u2019s term. His replacement, H.R. McMaster, lasted just over a year before Bolton was named to the role\u2014also in a tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI honestly have no love for John Bolton\u2019s policy, but the idea that our allies have no one to talk to with consistency \u2026 is really dangerous,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cDid Donald Trump just figure out that John Bolton was a military hawk? Did it just come to his attention that John Bolton was going to recommend military intervention in all corners of the world?\u201d<\/p>\n Even Kaine is concerned about the repercussions of having such a fluid cast among a whole host of top US officials<\/a>, not just in national security advisors. \u201cAmerica is in a place now where you could not, as another nation, count on us,\u201d he said. \u201cNations around the world who have been able to count on the United States, they can\u2019t and that\u2019s a shame. But that\u2019s not because of the staff; that\u2019s because of the president.\u201d<\/p>\n Bolton could be a divisive figure even among Republicans. Senator Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning isolationist from Kentucky, danced on Bolton\u2019s political grave on Tuesday afternoon during an impromptu conference call with reporters. But even he refuses to buy the emerging doomsday narrative from progressives like Murphy.<\/p>\n \u201cMany on the Democrat [sic<\/em>] side were never fans, but now they just want to criticize Trump,\u201d Paul told WIRED. Like many Republicans, he brushes off this latest episode of the president\u2019s Apprentice: Oval Office<\/em> season, and portrays criticism of Trump as partisan politics, not concerns about national security.<\/p>\n Representative Tom Reed, the Republican from New York and a loyal Trump supporter, said he is confident that this week\u2019s shake-up won\u2019t substantially change foreign policy inside this White House.<\/p>\n \u201cThat voice\u2014the Bolton voice is still over there. The hawkish versus the dove, you know, the disengagement thing,\u201d he told WIRED. \u201cThe two philosophies, obviously, are counter to each other, but it\u2019s very clear the administration and the president know exactly where they stand. And they\u2019re a policy of get our men and women home.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump promised voters he\u2019d end the war in Afghanistan while campaigning, and the US had been negotiating a deal with the Taliban before the Camp David talks collapsed.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are really good, qualified men and women that are setting forth plans in order to make sure, as we approach this disengagement policy, that we also recognize there are real risks, in real time that need to be dealt with proactively,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n But the Democrats\u2019 worries about national security go beyond just one job. Experts and former officials have warned that the administration\u2019s cybersecurity policies could put the country at risk, for example, including Bolton\u2019s own hawkish stance toward cyberwar<\/a>. At the same time, the president has repeatedly downplayed other threats<\/a>, such as foreign interference in US elections<\/a>, despite warnings by American officials<\/a> to the contrary. And Trump\u2019s ability to handle classified information had already been called into question recently, after he tweeted a photo of an Iranian launchpad<\/a> from an intelligence briefing, which internet sleuths quickly used to identify the US spy satellite that took it.<\/p>\n Then there are this week\u2019s news that the intelligence community had to pull a top American spy from Moscow in 2017. CNN reported<\/a> that the extraction was prompted in part by concerns over Trump\u2019s own loose handling of intelligence, according to its sources. The New York Times<\/em><\/a> reported that media attention to the CIA\u2019s sources in the aftermath of Russian meddling in the 2016 election was the catalyst.<\/p>\n Many top lawmakers remain tight-lipped about the sensitive subject, especially those on the Senate intelligence committee. (Its vice chair, Democratic senator Mark Warner of Virginia, told WIRED \u201cI can\u2019t comment at all on anything related to that issue.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u201cHe has certainly undermined his own intelligence community on many occasions,\u201d Ben Cardin, the Democratic senator from Maryland, told WIRED. \u201cThe intelligence community plays it right down the line. They\u2019re not partisan. They just give us the facts; we make the decisions. You can have your own opinions, but you can\u2019t have your own facts.\u201d<\/p>\n A number of Democrats said they fear this will result in the slow erosion of the nation\u2019s intelligence sector. But their options are limited. The Constitution gives the executive branch broad latitude to run the nation\u2019s foreign policy. Lawmakers can continue holding hearings and using the power of the purse as a way to rein in the administration, but this may not be as effective\u2014especially because Republicans control the Senate and are giving Trump a long leash.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t buy the narrative that the president has done anything to compromise our national security,\u201d Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, told WIRED. \u201cAnd I can assure you that all the tools in the toolbox are being used when it comes to protecting the homeland, and intelligence gathering is very robust, and all the tools are being used.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawmakers of all stripes seem to shrug off the suggestion that these latest national security upheavals amount to anything new\u2014for better or for worse. \u201cI don\u2019t think it sends a new message,\u201d Representative Brad Sherman, the Democrat from California, said to WIRED. \u201cIf anyone thought that Donald Trump was providing calm, careful, reasoned foreign policy for America, they\u2019ve been in a coma.\u201d<\/p>\n