Bolton Believes Israel Should Attack Iran

John Bolton supports an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. He says regime change would be the ideal scenario, but we cannot rely on that outcome with Iran being so close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Regime change is not going to happen in the near future and even if it did, Iran would still move foreward with its nuclear ambitions which would still make it a threat since we can't be sure the regime replacing the current one would be more westernized and even if it was it may still be hostile to Israel. I don’t trust any muslim country with nuclear weapons. Either America takes out Iran’s nuclear facilities or Israel should and must do so themselves because it cannot afford to wait on regime change as others in the west have the luxury of doing so given that Iran does not pose an existential threat to them. If only people with moral clarity like John Bolton were leading this country instead of who we currently have.

Bolton: Israel Must Bomb Iran


by Tim Mak, The New Majority

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton addressed a crowded room at the American Enterprise Institute today, saying that “the use of force is required” to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and predicting that he didn’t “think that Israel [would] hesitate to act preemptively.”

At a panel discussion titled “Should Israel Attack Iran?”, the Bush appointee pulled no punches in criticizing his former boss, arguing that President Bush should have struck at Iran’s nuclear capabilities when he had the chance:
I had once thought the Bush administration would [bomb Iran] before it left office because it liked to say that an Iran with nuclear weapons was unacceptable, and I used to think that when the President said ‘unacceptable’ that he meant ‘unacceptable’… It’s a difficult mission. We can do it better. That’s why I thought we should do it


Bolton justified his stance by pointing out the regional implications of a successful Iranian nuclear weapons program:
Once Iran gets nuclear weapons, we are in danger on a worldwide basis… Iran isn’t the end of the problem. The real difficulty with that analysis is that Saudi Arabia will get nuclear weapons, probably Egypt, probably Turkey, possibly others. So within a five to ten year period, you’ll have half a dozen nuclear countries in the Middle East… almost guaranteeing a nuclear exchange at some point or another.
Bolton also argued that the failure of the international community’s efforts to contain Iran was another reason for a pre-emptive strike,

noting that “the other options have failed, are failing and will fail.”

As evidence, he pointed to the three U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding sanctions on Iran, opining that they have to this date made “no material impact on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” The former ambassador to the U.N. further said that future sanctions would prove to be similarly ineffective:
The prospect of sanctions in the future is illusory…The combination of Russian and Chinese action in the Security Council on any hypothetical fourth resolution would end up watering it down just like the first three.

Bolton conceded that an Israeli strike would likely lead to an overwhelmingly negative reaction from within the Obama administration, saying that he didn’t “think it will be at the level of military force against Israel. But I think that it will cause a very dramatic break in the relationship between the Obama administration and Israel.”

Other panelists hesitated to go as far as Ambassador Bolton, who at one point contended that “the ideal outcome is regime change.”
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, cautioned that striking Iran’s nuclear weapons capability would instantly legitimize Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “An Israeli strike is a lousy scenario for the U.S.,” he said.