Chickenhawk John Bolton – who just can’t wait to start new wars with Iran and/or North Korea – is Donald Trump’s pick to replace H.R. McMaster and is the latest Fox News personality to join the Trump administration.

Bolton had been rumored to be in the running for the job but we had hoped something would derail him.

Vox has a terrifying summary of Bolton:

Bolton has said the United States should declare war on both North Korea and Iran. He was credibly accused of manipulating US intelligence on weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq war and of abusive treatment of his subordinates. He once “joked” about knocking 10 stories off the UN building in New York. That means his new appointment to be the most important national security official in the White House has significant — and frightening — implications for Trump’s approach to the world.

Vox also details Bolton’s dismal record: insisting Iraq had WMDs, abusive behavior toward those who challenged him and his affinity for anti-Islam extremists:

Bolton was particularly popular among a small but influential group of hardline anti-Islam activists, the “counter-jihad” movement, who believed the US government was being infiltrated by Islamists and that Islamic law was quietly taking over the US legal system.

Bolton wrote the foreword to a book by two of the most prominent counter-jihadists, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, in 2010. In 2016, Bolton spoke at a conference held by the American Freedom Alliance, considered a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, titled “Can Islam and the West Coexist?” His speech contained a “joke” whose punchline was that President Obama was a Muslim.

We are, unfortunately, very familiar with Bolton. Some of the choice quotes we’ve heard through the years:

“What I think the long term solution has to be is the merger of two Koreas, the end of North Korea, basically.” America’s News HQ, February 12, 2017

“In Arab capitals all over the region and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Cairo, there’d be celebrations because the Arabs don’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons any more than Israel does.

[…]

Iran itself – I think you would see a popular opposition to the regime, if only the United States and others would help it. I think we could bring the regime down.

[…]

I think that a program designed to follow on to the very precise attacks on the nuclear fuel cycle locations in Iran would produce a popular uprising.” Happening Now, March 27, 2015

When Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea during a speech at the U.N., Bolton was almost orgasmic over the hawkishness:

“This was the best speech of the Trump presidency in my view. I think he was as clear and direct as it’s possible to be. … I think the centerpiece of the speech was the criticism of the behavior of North Korea and Iran and I think it’s safe to say in the entire history of the United Nations, there has never been a more straightforward criticism of the behavior, the unacceptable behavior of other member states.

On North Korea, the president said that if we are forced to, we will have no choice but the total destruction of North Korea. I think people will remember that.

[…] That means in his view, we don’t end this present crisis with North Korea still in possession of a nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. America’s Newsroom, September 19, 2017

“I don’t think [bombing Iran is] worth waiting around for. If you miss it, even by a few weeks, then Iran’s response is nuclear retaliation. Look, Israel should have done this a long time ago or the United States should have done it a long time ago.” On the Record, November 7, 2011

As we’ve previously written, there may not be any war that Bolton doesn’t love – except the one he could have fought in. As the Los Angeles Times noted, Bolton supported the Vietnam war but when he had a chance to fight it, he dodged the opportunity and joined the National Guard. 

“I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy,” Bolton wrote of his decision in his Yale 25th reunion book. “I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.”

But clearly, he’s happy – eager, even – for others to fight and die to satisfy his bloodlust.

(Bolton image via screen grab)