National security adviser John Bolton has spent his adult life warning against fuzzy-headed foreign diplomacy in which we imagine that our enemies are just misunderstood and have the same peaceful aims as we do. He has been early to point out — with Iran, for example — the dangers of relying on empty statements.
The regime will exploit every loophole and use every tactic to delay and deceive, he has said. We cannot appease bullies and tyrants, he has warned. It must therefore be painful for him to serve a president who is a caricature of the dimwitted liberals Bolton used to vilify.