Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is urging President-elect Donald Trump not to appoint John Bolton as secretary of State.
{mosads}Bolton has not learned any lessons from one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes in U.S. history — the invasion of Iraq — Paul argued in a Tuesday op-ed on Rare, a website popular with libertarians.
“Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years — particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president,” he wrote.
Paul said Bolton has stood more often with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton than with Trump on foreign policy issues.
Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, said last year that he didn’t regret supporting the decision to invade Iraq, calling it “correct.”
“I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct. I think decisions made after that decision were wrong, although I think the worst decision made after that was the 2011 decision to withdraw U.S. and coalition forces,” he said at the time.
Paul, who throughout his political career has called on the U.S. to exercise military restraint, said Bolton failed to learn the lessons of the war.
“Trump has blamed George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for helping create ISIS — but should add John Bolton to that list, who essentially agreed with all three on our regime change debacles,” Paul wrote.
He praised Trump for observing that while former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein “was a horrible guy,” he nevertheless maintained stability in Iraq and kept a lid on Islamic extremism.
And he said Trump is correct to view the 2003 overthrow of Hussein as a colossal mistake and to question overthrowing former Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 as a destabilizing move. Bolton, in contrast, supported toppling Gaddafi.
“No man is more out of touch with the situation in the Middle East or more dangerous to our national security than Bolton,” Paul wrote.
“At a time when Americans thirst for change and new thinking, Bolton is an old hand at failed foreign policy. The man is a menace,” he added.