An early copy of John Bolton’s chapter on Venezuela, from his book, The Room Where It Happened, found its way to my inbox Wednesday night. According to media coverage of the book, Bolton regales readers with tales of President Trump’s willful ignorance and clumsy leadership. Clearly, Bolton thinks he is more clever and cunning than his old boss. Perhaps he makes that case more adequately in other chapters of his book than he does in the one entitled, “Venezuela Libre.”

In telling the story of the Trump administration’s 18-month campaign to topple the narcoregime led by Nicolas Maduro, Bolton exposes his own naivete and amateurish policymaking. He tries to blame Trump’s “wobbly” second-guessing for the failure of a flimsy and fatally flawed strategy, which was brought to Trump by career diplomats and a disoriented intelligence community vouching for double-crossing Venezuelans.