As McMaster leaves and Bolton comes in as National Security Adviser, has the final element for the perfect storm just fallen into place?

On September 11th 2001 PNAC got their Pearl Harbor, and within an hour of the strike, L. Paul Bremer had been conveniently available to tell the world exactly who had been responsible for the attacks.

Today, now that Saudi Arabia’s defacto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has hawkishly aligned his Kingdom with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, an event on the scale of 9/11 would be a little too obvious, and in my personal opinion, wholly unnecessary.

If your interim goal is war with Iran, you begin chipping away at its least powerful allies; Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. Maybe you could have “rebels’ overthrow the government in Yemen, or have Prime Minister Hariri resign in order to increase conflict in Lebanon, and perhaps ferment an uprising in Syria where Bashar al Assad ‘s forces will be obliged to respond.

In the confusion of existing conflict, devices such as assassinations and chemical attacks can then be attributed to the defensive parties and their assumed offensive backers, Iran and Russia.

Of course, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, all or either, are simply the minnows to catch the fish, Iran. But Iran itself is little more than the fish that will lure the prize catch, which is Russia. So, whilst fermenting unrest in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, you also chip away at Russia, and of course, any nation that identifies and publically objects to your actual intentions and actions: Qatar for example, can be isolated and ostracized from the international community.

John Bolton doesn’t need a new Pearl Harbor, he’s already got it, and my fear is that his arrival takes the existing groundwork towards the greater objective where a few will profit hugely whilst millions will die needlessly.

Well, ….. that’s what I think.