Strange goings on, perhaps about place-holding, leaks, or policy differences, since Peek wrote more about Middle Eastern topics for Foreign Affairs. But perhaps the WH figured out that he once wrote a less than flattering Trump piece for the Fiscal Times.
The top Russia expert on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council has left his post after about three months, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Andrew Peek, the NSC’s senior director for European and Russian affairs, was escorted from the White House grounds on Friday, two of the people said, asking not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to discuss personnel matters. A spokesman for the NSC declined to comment, citing the same reason. Peek also declined to comment.
Axios reported earlier Saturday that Peek was placed on administrative leave pending a security-related investigation.
Peek is the third departure from the position in less than a year. The NSC has been marked by turbulence and turnover over Trump’s three years in office, as the president has repeatedly sought national security advisers more in-line with his own ideology.
www.bloomberg.com/…
Peek’s two predecessors testified in impeachment inquiry
Andrew L. Peek is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Prior to joining the State Department, he was a Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas while finishing his Ph.D. in international relations under Dr. Eliot Cohen at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His writing has been published in Foreign Affairs and The Wall Street Journal, among other outlets, and he has appeared regularly to discuss foreign policy issues on television.
Before entering academia, Peek served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer. General David Petraeus requested him personally for his Commanders’ Initiatives Group in Afghanistan, where he served as the strategic advisor on intelligence and special operations issues for General John Allen, Petraeus’s successor. In that role he was Gen. Allen’s personal advisor for direct action, foreign internal defense, intelligence, and Pakistani aspects of the war. He also advised on the commander’s meetings with foreign intelligence agencies, other national representatives, ministerial conferences at NATO, and interagency meetings with the White House. He subsequently served as a reservist with Joint Special Operations Command.
www.state.gov/...
Did anyone actually read any of his writings before appointing him or is this symptomatic of the usual stupidity of the Trump administration. Perhaps Peek simply decided he couldn’t be part of trying to invent an imminent attack scenario for Iran.
(2015)
Trump would have none of these problems. Using only his words, he’s seized the support of a significant portion of the Republican primary electorate from experienced orators like Ted Cruz. That is not the same as seizing a significant portion of the general electorate, but he is a smart man and presumably canny enough to know how to do that when it is required. Presumably. Unfiltered proclamations can be useful means to an end, even if that end is a sotto voce promotion of his own reality show.
[...]
No, the idea of Donald Trump as Commander in Chief that should give us pause is not his own skills. It is his focus on them. In response to foreign policy questions in the past, Trump has stressed the need for a “dealmaker” like himself, someone who knows the ins and outs of major negotiations. Someone who knows when it’s time to bluff and settle, and can charm or hustle the most sullen foreign partners. He’ll force Mexico to build its own wall, stand up to the Chinese on everything, and seize Iraq’s oil fields from the Islamic State.
No other candidate has even a remotely similar foreign policy. It is Trump Global, trademarked under a copyright – and that is what should scare us. Diplomacy and the American interest are fundamentally not dependent on individuals, however clever and charming they are. Our interests, like those of many countries, are mostly unchanging. That’s why Barack Obama’s foreign policy looks so similar to George W. Bush’s – and in certain areas, more Bush than Bush.
[...]
It is not difficult to see the same thing happening to Trump. With the ego, with the money, with the reality show, and with the swagger, it is easy to see a deal for Trump the Magnificent leaving America behind. The US hasn’t had a hostile relationship with Mexico for a century and a half. Friendly neighbors are a good thing.
I’m somewhat amused with the idea of invading the Islamic State and seizing its oil (take THAT, conventional paradigms of the Middle East!), but the US hasn’t been in the business of resource grabbing since the Polk Administration. Would Americans support the 52nd state in western Iraq? How many electoral votes should it get? Would the Iroquois vote for him? Probably pretty socially conservative.The Trump show will probably not last through the fall. Comparatively few voters are paying attention, and even less have begun to imagine the candidates as commander in chief. There’s a possibility Trump’s platform will gain traction as the second coming of James K. Polk and manifest destiny, but more likely, in the end, he’ll just be Trump. Glorious, no doubt, and successful, but not the commander in chief.
www.thefiscaltimes.com/...