The Room Where It Happened, The Final Chapters

Chapters 12-14: "Bolton's Exit Strategy"

There is, of course, the epilogue to deal with, but here we are at the end of the book proper. While there are certainly more salacious lines from Bolton in this section, honestly, it is tiring to turn this pages while daily new travesties are being visited upon us and constant demonstrations of self-dealing and willful deceit and ignorance abound. However, let's get into it, I guess...

Quick hits: Bolton finally gives up. He took on the job of National Security Advisor with the dream of transforming the inner workings of the American foreign policy and intelligence apparatus, or at least of enacting clear, hardline positions against those he believes to be our enemies or rivals. However, he at last came to realize that he was working for a president that in his judgment does not have the temperament to lead a nation, one more interested in his own accomplishments than the needs of the country, one that lacked any sense of focus, consistency, or ethics. These final chapters also highlight what Bolton describes as failures with Iran and Afghanistan, before finally touching on, naturally, the Ukraine scandal.

As before, I assume that you are already somewhat familiar with the big picture ideas here, so I'll just hit on the more interesting sections.

Iran: as with dealings with any other foreign adversary, Trump talks tough, then folds like a house of cards. Bolton talks about the president's fecklessness in the face of Iranian aggression and his refusal to listen to his advisors or to work with European allies (of course, Bolton being who he is, was not a fan of this approach, though he probably would agree that at least this would be more consistent than what did happen). The main point of action here was the decision to launch a military strike against Iran in retaliation for their actions in attacking and seizing merchant ships, among other things. Here the narrative played out seemingly like it always did - Trump has his military and intelligence advisors draw up plans for military actions. They then argue about what to do before finally settling on packages that are less aggressive than what Bolton would do, but still involve at least doing something. Trump then agrees to a plan, and everyone gets ready for the plan to go forward, but then the president cancels it at the last minute (and usually sends out a "strongly-worded" tweet instead). It probably doesn't help that the man is never focused on strategy and planning, instead spending much of the intelligence meetings grousing about money being "wasted" on foreign affairs, pulling out American troops from everywhere without any regard to the geopolitical fallout, and, of course, blaming John Kerry for everything. Bolton (and pretty much every other administration official) have to repeatedly inform the president that he can't just throw Kerry in prison:

As long as Trump is President, and probably thereafter, he will search for a lawyer willing to prosecute Kerry. If I were Kerry, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. (376) 

Afghanistan:  Bolton looks at two major issues here - Pompeo trying to negotiate a deal with the Taliban without any input from anyone else, and Trump's disastrous idea to try to invite the Taliban to Camp David. This, of course, claims Bolton, sprung from Trump ridiculous notion that he could solve any conflict by having a one day meeting with someone, rather than careful, thoughtful multilateral negotiations. That he would even suggested this meeting was a shock to the rest of the administration:

There is much I cannot describe here, but suffice it to say that, with one exception, no one in the West Wing was enthusiastic about this frolic. (440)

No doubt they were all relieved that this meeting eventually fell through. Also depressing to note here is Trump's consistent confusing of former Afghani President Karzai with the current President Ghani. Zero attention to even the most basic of details.

Ukraine: as you might recall from all the stories that swirled around the impeachment hearings, Bolton wanted nothing to do with Guiliani's preposterous shenanigans in Ukraine. In the book, he backs up Final Hill's account of everything in matter, including her quote of Bolton himself:

...she quoted me accurately as saying, "I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up." I thought the whole affair was bad policy, questionable legally, and unacceptable as presidential behavior. Was it a factor in my later resignation? Yes, but as one of many "straws" that contributed to my departure. Earlier, Hill testified, I had called Giuliani "a hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up," which still sounds right today. (465)

Bolton does discuss Trump completely buying into Rudy's wild and baseless conspiracy theories, leading to his firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and his obsession with "the server," Hillary Clinton, and Hunter Biden. This also played into his dangerously ignorant views on the Ukraine vs. Russia issues, and, of course, the "perfect" phone call and the withholding of the funds already approved by Congress and the Department of Defense.