What seems to be the likelihood that US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is on the verge of losing his job could be the second bloodied nose for hard-charging insiders of the Donald Trump administration.
Flynn and his possible demise was the hot topic on the US Sunday talk-show circuit after reports surfaced that conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kisilyak included US sanctions on Russia. Beside the sensitivity of such issues, it seems Flynn lied about it to US Vice President Mike Pence.
According to officials at the US National Security Council the Flynn affair ranks as the second bloodying after what was handed out to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Trade Chief Peter Navarro.
They questioned US security policy toward Europe and economic policy toward the EU and Germany, in particular.
That was until their boss, President Donald Trump, said on February 6 at US Central Command HQ in Florida: “We strongly support NATO. We only ask that all of the NATO members make their full and proper financial contributions.” A far cry from the “NATO is obsolete” campaign rhetoric.
Meanwhile, Navarro, after his statements on alleged undervaluation of the euro to German advantage — widely derided as “hogwash” in the financial community — has not been heard from at all.
Donald Trump is know to be sensitive to being embarrassed by his underlings and Navarro’s larger agenda of declaring China a currency manipulator has not even been aired.
What’s played out on the European front with those two Trump insiders could well about to be replayed on a global scale with Flynn.
Adam Schiff, Democratic ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, has called for Flynn’s dismissal over the Russia conversations. Meantime, the lack of any effort from the White House to defend Flynn suggests his days may be numbered.
So, if Flynn goes, who steps up?
Officials at the National Security Council, who declined to be named to discuss the issue, said the most likely Flynn successor would be K T McFarland, the current Deputy National Security Advisor.
She started her career as an aide to Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration, then served under Ronald Reagan (as deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs) and more recently was a Fox News national security analyst.
McFarland, known as K T, remains close to Kissinger and could be assumed to be his “eyes and ears” in the Trump administration and a conduit for Kissinger’s ideas and policy proposals.
There can be little doubt that a McFarland appointment to the top foreign and security policy job in the White House would have significant global US policy consequences.
Even if Flynn survives in the top job, he would be wounded by the Russian business and the influence of K T — and by extension, Kissinger can only grow.
Harvard historian Niall Ferguson in a November post-election piece on Trump foreign policy options and choices wrote about what some of those Kissinger influences might look like:
China, don’t get into an all-out confrontation on trade or the South China Sea. Seek comprehensive discussion to avoid a 1914 in the Pacific.
On Russia, deal-making comes into play and the biggest deal would be making Ukraine a bridge between NATO and Russia rather than a source of conflict.
Brexit is an opportunity to steer the Europeans back to facing up to their strategic responsibilities.
For peace in Syria look to the model in the former Yugoslavia nearly twenty years ago. Kissinger suggests a “cantonization” of Syria similar to the federalization of Bosnia. Give Assad an off-ramp with a time stamp on it.
Kissinger’s views of foreign affairs could probably do the world right now quite a bit of good, at least according to K T McFarland in some of her commentary as a Fox News analyst.
On China policy, the Kissinger effect would be most pronounced. Kissinger met on China (and Russia) with Trump shortly after the election. He then went to meet with President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Kissinger is the architect of the one-China policy. His advice on sticking with it appears to have won out over the Navarro/Bannon confrontationist predilections. His further advice on engaging with China, not as an adversary, but as a challenger with whom one can make a deal, could put US-China policy on a sounder footing.
On Russia, Kissinger would favor engaging Putin as an equal as he desires and making a mutually beneficial deal on Eastern Europe rather than continuing the Obama policy slide into a new Cold War. A report in the German-language BILD newspaper summed it up with the headline: “Kissinger tasked to prevent new Cold War.”
On the Middle East, Kissinger is advising Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has been tasked with “Mission Impossible” by Trump. The outcome, of course, is uncertain in that part of the world, but under Kissinger’s guidance it’s not expected to produce false Obama-era Arab Springs nor neocon democratization illusions as the basis for peace.
And while they try and herd this bunch of cats into some kind of coherent foreign policy the world just motors along while watching this side show in amusement.. What a collosal clash of egos and people putting thoughts they cobbled together during a binge drinking spree out there for the public to see. No wonder the US government is always finding it necessary to bail out their previous businesses and rescue generals from failed wars etc. i guess having billions does not equate to having brains and common sence as well. There has to be another term developed to describe this cacaphony of voices coming out of Washington,. Group Think used to cover what went on there, but what is happening now could hardly be called group think. Every idiot with some idiotic thought that passes through his fogged up brain seems free to annunciate it to the world. Then the " Whoops" thats not what we wanted to say after all. Then the Commander in Chief fixes his reptilian gaze on the latest clown and says in his booming voice, while waving his miniature fingers in the air " You´re fired".
Wow! So vile you certainly qualify as a Leftist Soros supporter or even a miget-minded BLM zelot wearing "Bernie Love ya Man " tee shirt. Have you considered that just maybe a group of experienced, hard charging Type "A" personalities who have been observing the social and ecoonomic demise of America at home and have seen American Influence on a world-wdie basis trashed by an Islamo-Fascist Ideological fool for the past 8 years just might be a liitle too anxious to try to set it right. If Gen. Flynn did as has been reported then yes he should demissed and will likely resign on his own. But remmber that he had an amazing career and served his country with honor for decades before the most incompetent Obama arrived. Now you may think I am as viel towards Obama as you are to the Trump Admistration but consider that I have been proven correct over past 8 years and you are just guessing what will happen. Consider that the Adults are back in charge, let;s give them a chance.
Trump has grossly underestimated the Deep State. Putting someone like Bannon in charge is intolerable, and forces that Trump doesn’t even know exist are motion. Trump will cave, or he is gone. He has made a powerfull enemy in McCain too. His ground is shakier than he thinks. jj
You said it man. If Flynn, who was supposed to reign in the CIA got his ass handed to him by them, then that means Trump is already teetering. If Trump didn’t defend this guy and if this article is correct, Bannon and Navarro have been marginalized ALREADY then the Deep State has drawn first blood and the swamp is winning. I infer that Russia will now have alarm bells going off everywhere, Flynn was their guy and now he’s OUT.
Kellyanne got burned by this (her second strike) by affirming that Flynn had the presidents full confidence and not BAM he’s DONE right after she made that statement.
I enjoyed the first two weeks but I guess it’s all down hill from here.
Thomas, I guess you hate Trump too.
make no mistake..dont buy the the crap..from..the mentally deranged ..clash of civilization..or end of history ..or the likes of niall ferguson..these writers are right wing speculators..of force..with kissingers vision of further conflict..the trump era is about confrontation…about economic challenge to the rise of asia..and the new russian diplomacy in mideast.
PJ D’Angelo
I love the Trump cabinette so far it is like hitching two horses to a wagon facing the front and two horses at the back facing backward and the moron if chief yells go. Of course the wagon does not move and neither does Trumps goverment of idiots.