Trump’s Former NatSec Advisor Rips His Gaza Proposal: ‘It’d Be Very Dangerous’
Longtime foreign policy hawk John Bolton panned President Donald Trump’s proposal in which the United States would play an active role in postwar Gaza.
On Tuesday, Trump held a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which the president made some unexpected remarks.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings.”
Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor, appeared on Thursday’s episode of The Source on CNN.
“There are really two issues here,” Bolton said of a potential U.S. occupation of Gaza. “The first is, what’s the U.S. role going to be postwar in Gaza? I don’t think it will look anything like what Trump suggested on Tuesday night. I don’t think there’d be any support for it. It’d be very dangerous in the circumstances. He doesn’t want to put troops in, which wouldn’t be advisable anyway.”
Bolton went on to say that the second issue is whether there is an attempt at a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
“If you’re the national security advisor now, though, and Trump tells you that’s what he wants the U.S. to do – to occupy Gaza after this war is over, you say?” host Kaitlan Collins asked.
“The only thing you can say when you’re talking to him privately that way is, ‘Well, have you considered the following considerations? The amount of security that would be required for significant U.S. involvement in clearing Gaza and then rebuilding it? The lack of likely private investors to put billions of dollars into an area that’s subject to terrorist attacks.’ Remember the saying, capital is a coward. You’re not going to get private investment in a highly politically risky, non-secure situation. You have to get security before you get the investment. That’s why this whole idea of the Eastern Mediterranean Riviera is just utterly unrealistic.”
Watch above via CNN.
