Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
Tuesday, June 24, 2008

John Bolton, a former United Nations ambassador appointed by President George W. Bush, has predicted that the state of Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear sites before the next US president is sworn in.

In an interview with UK’s The Telegraph, Bolton said the Arab world would be ‘pleased’ at news of such an attack. “It [the reaction] will be positive privately,” he said. “I think there’ll be public denunciations but no action.”

However, Bolton panned the idea that an attack on Iran would be carried out by American forces, stating: … “the administration has essentially given up that possibility. I don’t think it’s serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don’t think it’s in the cards.”

The ‘optimal window,’ states Bolton, would be between the elections on November 4 and the January 20, 2009 inauguration.

“My judgment is they would not want to do anything before our election because there’s no telling what impact it could have on the election,” he is quoted as saying. “An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy. … With McCain they might still be looking at a delay.”

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Damien McElroy
London Telegraph
Tuesday, May 6, 2008

John Bolton, America’s ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in Iraq.

Mr Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian response harming American’s overseas interests existed, he said the damage inflicted by Tehran would be “far higher” if Washington took no action.

“This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do,” he said. “Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.”

Mr Bolton, an influential former member of President George W Bush’s inner circle, dismissed as “dead wrong” reported British intelligence conclusions that the US military had overstated the support that Iran was providing to Iraqi fighters.

A US military spokesman revealed last week that the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had drafted in personnel from Lebanon’s Hizbollah to train fighters from Iraq’s Shia militias.

Colonel Donald Bacon, a spokesman for the coalition in Baghdad, said captured fighters had told interrogators that thousands of Iraqi fighters were undergoing training in the Islamic Republic.

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AFP
Monday, January 21, 2008

Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Monday that Israel may have to take military action to prevent its archfoe Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb.

Bolton also said that further UN sanctions against the Islamic republic will be ineffective in stopping Iran’s controversial nuclear programme which Israel and the US believe is aimed at developing a bomb — a claim denied by Tehran.

“One can say with some assurance that in the next year the use of force by the United States is highly unlikely,” Bolton told AFP on the sidelines of the Herzliya conference on the balance of Israel’s national security.

“That increases the pressure on Israel in that period of time… if it feels Iran is on the verge of acquiring that capability, it brings the decision point home to use force,” he said.

The hawkish former diplomat said that after a US intelligence report published late last year that claimed Iran had suspended a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, the US was unlikely to take military action against it.

“The pressure is on Israel now after the National Intelligence Estimate because, I think, the likelihood of American use of force has been dramatically reduced,” he said.

Widely considered the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel considers Iran its number one enemy following repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.

Bolton said that military action against Iran should be taken before Tehran acquires a bomb.

“The calculus in the region changes dramatically once Iran has nuclear capability, meaning the preemptive use of force or the overthrow of the Iranian regime has to come before they get the weapon,” Bolton said.

“If you are worried about an Iran with nuclear weapons and an extreme theological regime in power, the time to take the plan of action is before Iran acquires the weapons.

“Once it acquires the weapons there is a risk of retaliation with nuclear capability and that’s why Israel is in danger — it is a very small country and two or three nuclear weapons (and) there is no more country. The pressure to act is intensive and the window of time available is narrow.”

Bolton also said that despite Iranian threats to hit hard if it is attacked, “their response will be a lot more measured than people think.”
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