Donald Trump has got people used to the idea of post-truth politics. But post-truth foreign policy appears to be another matter. Michael Flynn, a retired general and the new US president’s national security adviser, has been forced to resign just three weeks into the job — after it emerged that he had misled the White House about the contents of his conversations with the Russian ambassador in Washington.
The Flynn resignation raises (at least) three serious questions. First, how long can the current chaos in the White House last? Second, does Mr Flynn’s resignation suggest that Washington’s foreign-policy establishment is poised to regain control of the Trump agenda? And third, is President Trump himself now vulnerable to being caught up in the fallout from the Flynn scandal?
On the chaos question, it should be noted that it is unprecedented for a national security adviser to be forced out of the job so quickly. The Flynn resignation also swiftly follows the debacle of the Trump administration’s “executive order” on refugees and migrants — which was overturned by the courts last week.