The Room Where it Happened, Chapter 2

Chapter 2: "Cry 'Havoc!' and Let Slip the Dogs of War" or "That Time That General Mattis Played Me For A Fool"

Brief summary for those with limited time for this stuff: in this chapter, Bolton details the behind-the-scenes decision-making that went into the 2018 military strike against Syria in response to Assad's use of chemical weapons on his own people (not to be confused with the 2017 military strike against Syria in response to Assad's use of chemical weapons on his own people). He goes into how General Mattis outmaneuvered him in influencing President Trump's final decision, how useless Steve Mnuchin and Nikki Haley's contributions were, and, naturally, Trump's characteristic lack of focus.

When we last left our self-styled hero, JB had just come on board as the National Security Advisor. In this second installment, he hops right into the fire (some might call it a dumpster fire) with the administration gearing up to react to Bashar al-Assad's forces using chemical weapons in Douma. He briefly discusses the foreign policy failures that had proceeded this (Obama's obviously naïve decision to allow Putin and Russia to "handle" removing chemical weapons from Syria and Trump's knee-jerk reaction of a military strike following the 2017 chemical attacks, neither of which had any lasting deterrence in Assad's mind, clearly).

Bolton's initial reflection here notes another of Trump's central tendencies, one that most observers have come to be nauseatingly familiar with: tweet first, think later. Bolton points out that Trump sent out strong tweets on the subject without having had any discussions with his military and intelligence advisors. This lack of planning and followthrough are evident throughout the chapter, as is Trump's singular lack of focus. Bolton describes his initial call with Trump, in which the president veers off into completely unrelated topics like trade wars and tariffs. A common thread in the book so far is Bolton's annoyance at things like this, since they are completely unrelated to both his position (reasonable) and his goals and dreams for US foreign policy (your mile may vary on this one, naturally).

Of course, while all of this carries various degrees of interest (and little revelation), the main theme of this chapter is Bolton's views on the other cabinet members and advisors:

1. Jared Kushner. Like most of us, Bolton is concerned about how involved Trump's inexperienced son-in-law is in matter of national interest and security. Some of you may remember all the issues with security clearances from just a little while back, among other problems. I also share his concerns about investing so much power and influence in someone with little experience and no accountability in that Kushner is neither an elected official nor a senate confirmed cabinet official.

2. General Kelly. Trump's chief of staff at this point, Bolton seems appreciative of his work, but also feels that Kelly (like, pretty much everyone else in the world, it would seem) sometime infringes on Bolton's domain.

3. General Mattis. Bolton is frustrated at being played by the Secretary of Defense. In this vignette, Mattis strategically delays presenting the military options, and tailors them in a way that pushes the president into less risky options instead of Bolton's preferred hawkish route of maximum retaliation. This conflict should come as no surprise to anyone, given Bolton's lengthy history of extremely hawkish positions in foreign policy. He tries to play the "I got played by a savvy bureaucrat while trying to be an honest team player" card here, but that seems like a pretty weak move for someone whose experience would indicate otherwise.

4. Steve Mnuchin, Rex Tillerson, Nikki Haley. They don't get much more than a few mentions in this chapters, but it seems clear that Bolton thinks that the Treasury Secretary has nothing to add to national security meetings (that seems pretty uncontroversial) and that the UN Ambassador is bad at her job and is only there to position herself for future higher political positions. Tillerson is only mentioned as an object of criticism for the president (leading to that oft-repeated refrain of why Trump constantly hires and fires people with almost no sign of a thought process).

As for Trump, Bolton expresses his exasperation at the president's lack of a clear vision on what to do about the situation (strongly-worded tweets followed by vague instructions for cabinet members to "do something," making a decision, then later waffling on it). Case in point here is that a day after agreeing to with one of Mattis' military options, "Trump said he was thinking of tweeting that he had planned to attack but had called it off because there were no good targets anymore, although he would keep his 'finger on the trigger.' I nearly imploded, and I could only imagine what Mattis and Dunford were doing" (Bolton 58). The NSA is clearly dumbfounded by the president's lack of commitment and his lack of attention (pointing out the Trump brings up several ideas that were either highly unlikely or that had been already discussed in detail just days or hours previously).

If you've made it this far, you'll be happy for this little treat: my ongoing criticism of the author's style. One of the marks of a poor writer is the habit of constantly including unnecessary and uninteresting details. Take this sentence, for example:

"I left home with my newly assigned Secret Service protective detail a little before six a.m., heading to the White House in two silver-colored SUVs" (Bolton 45).

In a chapter about important decisions on foreign policy, why include such an irrelevant detail? Is there any reader out there that would be saying to themselves, "sure, John Bolton is having a meeting the with NSC staff, but how did he get to the White House?" I suppose it helps him paint a picture of himself as a status-hungry, self-aggrandizing buffoon, but little else.