Trump Ousts McMaster, Taps Bolton as National Security Advisor

Bolton becomes Trump’s third national security advisor in 14 months.

File photo of former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference

(Photo: AP)

US President Donald Trump on Thursday, 22 March, chose as his new national security advisor John Bolton, a hawk who has advocated using military force against Iran and North Korea and has taken a hard line against Russia.

Trump said in a tweet that Bolton would replace H.R. McMaster, his current national security advisor.

Bolton, 69, who has long been a polarizing figure in Washington foreign policy circles, becomes Trump's third national security advisor in 14 months.

Bolton joins a Trump national security team that with the planned replacement of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by CIA chief Mike Pompeo, is increasingly populated by figures who share Trump's penchant for exercising US power unilaterally.

As the State Department's top arms control official under President George W. Bush, Bolton was a leading advocate of the 2003 invasion of Iraq - which was later found to have been based on bogus and exaggerated intelligence about President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism.

In recent years, as a conservative media commentator, Bolton has advocated hardline positions on stopping Pyongyang from getting nuclear weapons that could threaten the United States. He has also