New Advisor is “Bolton Lite”

Trump has just named Robert O’Brien as his new National Security Advisor, replacing John Bolton.

[While O’Brien is being touted as having recently been involved with the release of the African American rapper A$AP Rocky from Swedish custody, the journalist Hijo del Cuervo notes on Twitter: “O’Brien was a Rotary scholar at the University of the Free State in South Africa. A whites-only institution since 1904. Desegregated in 1996 — after he was there.” O’Brien’s Linkedin profile states that he speaks two languages: English and Afrikaans.]

CURT MILLS, Cmills1 at gmail.com, @CurtMills
Mills is senior writer for The American Conservative. He has been writing about Bolton’s departure.

Mills stated this morning in a series of tweets that noted hawk “Hugh Hewitt wrote the introduction to National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien’s 2016 book, ‘While America Slept,’ a collection of essays that argues that American involvement overseas needs a restoration. …

“O’Brien is ‘Bolton lite,’ a source close to him described earlier in the replacement search. …

“For realists and core supporters of the president who hoped for a turn after the president fired Bolton, this is a deeply disappointing moment. Will O’Brien work to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan? Or will he expand/facilitate war with Iran? Track record suggests latter. …

“This is still a triumph for Pompeo, who gets a State guy in there and a weaker NSA than [with] Bolton. Pompeo is achieving Kissingerian levels of power in national security…”