The Atlantic

A Short Guide to John Bolton's Government Career

The incoming national-security adviser has advocated for war with North Korea.
Source: Mike Segar / Reuters

It is only fitting that, within the same week the United States marks 15 years since the 2003 Iraq invasion, John Bolton has been named the president’s national security adviser.

Bolton advocated for another U.S. invasion of Iraq, following the first Gulf War, as far back as the 1990s, President Clinton to oust Saddam Hussein. Later, as under secretary of state for arms control, during President George W. Bush’s first term in office, he the BBC the U.S. was “confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq.” The evidence used to go to war in 2003 might have that deposing Saddam was worth the effort—even if the decisions made after the invasion weren’t always right.

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