Trump Takes to the Mattresses
Well, you just do what I tell you to do. God damn it! If I had a wartime consigliere, a Sicilian, I wouldn’t be in this shape. – Sonny Corleone to Tom Hagan in The Godfather.
I imagine President Trump’s most recent conversations with Rex Tillerson (secretary of state), Gary Cohn, (chief economic advisor), and H. R. McMaster (national security advisor) resembled this testy scene from the film The Godfather. As well they should, because the president is facing a multi-front security threat that requires a tighter and tougher group of advisors.
A true leader – rather in business or the White House – cannot have close advisors that challenge his or her vision, which comes from the leader as what I want to do for this reason. A great advisor is not supposed to challenge the vision (such as ending the Iran nuclear deal). Rather, he or she provides the leader with options for achieving that vision. The logic behind this is simple.
Any decision is a 50-50 proposition. Bad presidential advisors believe their visions (what needs doing) will deliver a better (75%) success rate for the presidency – except modern management and military history know insubordination has the opposite effect: a 25% success rate that invites overall failure. The benefit of loyal and subordinate consiglieres is the paramount lesson of The Godfather and Trump’s recent housecleaning.
Trump is about to meet Kim Jong-un to coerce North Korea into unilateral nuclear disarmament, and Rex Tillerson did not have the president’s confidence. Trump is meeting the head of a real-world crime syndicate and needs a wartime consigliere. Enter Mike Pompeo, a Tea-Party Republican, who graduated first in his class from West Point, served at the Berlin Wall, and received a law degree from Harvard. He served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence before heading the CIA. His resume is impeccable.
Forget the chorus of recent Tillerson fans (anti-Trump liberals) and think about what is at stake. No American president has ever sat face to face with one of three generations of Jong-uns. Trump knows what is at stake (this could be huge) and wants the military experience and CIA expertise of Pompeo at his side. Put your feelings about Trump aside and pray for diplomacy to work, because the alternate (thermonuclear war) is unthinkable. Tillerson just did not have the chops for the job at hand – and Pompeo upgrades the position for this type of diplomacy.
Trump is also trying to pressure American allies in Europe and the Middle East to “fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal” before May 12, and McMaster was not aligned with the president. He did not articulate the tough position required to move the world closer to Trump’s vision, which is a non-nuclear Iran. Enter John Bolton, who served under Bush Junior, with a hawkish resume and support for de-nuking Iran.
A thinking American should spot the trend: Trump is trying to forge a singular mind for his national security cabinet because crunch time is here. In the next 90 days, his presidency will either remove nuclear weapons from two rogue regimes or join Clinton, Bush and Obama in the weak-kneed presidential dumpster. Hey – at least Trump is trying.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and China’s entry into global markets, things have not gone as American presidents promised. Putin hates the USA – no matter who resides in the White House – and speaks openly about having nuclear missiles America cannot detect. Russia has been cyber-attacking the USA for years. Just this week, Joel Brenner, former head of counterintelligence at the DNI, announced, “[The Russians] were placing the tools that they would [need] in place to turn off the power [grid].” Putin is ex-KGB and an ill-intentioned despot – always has been (in spite of Bush looking into his soul and Obama sending a re-set button). Defeating Putin requires a wartime consigliere like Bolton.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, might look like a kindly Oriental gentleman, but he was made leader for life in February. Another word for leader for life is dictator and Xi is building the Great Firewall to suppress dissent and any information that threatens “the honor of the State.” Furthermore, Xi has initiated the greatest military build-up in China’s history: stealth fighters, hypersonic missiles, oceanic surveillance networks, killer satellites, and a stealth submarine the US Navy cannot detect. With friends like Xi, who needs enemies, right?
It is intellectual folly to blame the current state of American insecurity on Trump. Quite the opposite: Trump was elected because of the wisdom of the masses that saw the Washington establishment for the do-nothing eunuchs they were. The threats of North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China transcend political party, having festered on the watch of Obama and Bush and Clinton.
Trump might be in so far over his head that his toupee floats down the Potomac. However, America is better served to surround this sitting president with stout-hearted men like Pompeo and Bolton, because these are most challenging times. I am not at ease today – not one iota – but not because Tillerson and McMaster were ousted.