- Given the human resources available, no man is indispensable
When just one reason will do, I can think of a very good one as to why General H. R. McMaster should not have been appointed to head the NSC:
“I give President Trump great credit for this decision, as well as his national security cabinet choices. I could not imagine a better, more capable national security team than the one we have right now,” McCain said in a statement.
But if you need a second reason:
“National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has fired three staff members in recent weeks. The three are Ezra Cohen-Watnick, senior director for intelligence; Derek Harvey, the NSC’s top Middle East adviser; and Rich Higgins, director for strategic planning. All three were aligned with Steve Bannon.
“Michael Warren of the Weekly Standard discusses the purge here. Glenn Thrush and Peter Baker of the New York Times discuss it here.
“Neither the Standard nor the Times reports on any ideological content to purge. Both treat it as a power struggle between McMaster and Steve Bannon, with the Times throwing in a Michael Flynn angle.
“Is there an ideological component to the purge? There appears to be.
“…as I understand to be the case, there has been no purge of Obama holdovers, this would suggest that McMaster is comfortable with Obama-era national security policy, or at least more comfortable with it than he is with the national security policy President Trump campaigned on.
“There are strong indications that this is so. Specifically, it may be that McMaster’s views on Israel and Iran are more in line with Obama’s than with Trump’s.”
Apparently McMaster is real comfortable with Obama’s “really bad Iran deal”.
Again, we ask, ‘who picked McMaster?’ Chuckie Schumer? Sasha Obama? The Iranian mullahs?
DLH
