Alec Russell interviews John Bolton on the US and Israel-Iran conflict
A few days ago, he was talking about talks with Iran, um, and then after the G7, we see a slit, a a a a shift, calling for Tehran’s unconditional surrender. He says his patience is wearing thin. And, and has boasted that uh Ayatollah Khomeini is an easy target. So you’ve been in the room with him for discussions on, on Iran. How do you interpret this seeming contradictory position that he’s been taking? Uh for Donald Trump, talk is cheap. And uh what he says in the morning may or may not be what he says in the afternoon and what he says on the campaign trail doesn’t necessarily reflect the choices he’s faced with. He’s just looser with words than most politicians because he’s had a very successful career of never being called to account for them. That said, uh. Where do you think, where do you think he stands now on Iran? There’s a carrier group that has moved from the South China Sea towards towards the Middle East. There are a number of reports, as you will know from Washington coming out, seemingly well sourced reports suggesting that he has decided to join Israel in taking action against Iran. What where do you think he’s going to come down on this? Well, I, I’d uh distinguish between two separate questions whether we take voluntary action militarily against Iran or whether we have to respond to something Iran does to us on on the question whether we voluntarily join Israel, which I think we should do, I don’t think Trump has made up his mind yet, and I don’t think he will because he still holds out the hope that the Iranians will. Uh, start negotiating, uh, which if I were, uh, in Tehran, I would certainly be advocating, not that I would have any intention of ever honoring the agreements, but it’s much better to talk, string things out and avoid attack. Uh, Uh, I, uh, he, he will be confronted within a number of days with, uh, the reality of having to make a decision one way or the other, but I can’t project what he’s gonna do. It doesn’t bother me because as I say, he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do. On the other hand, if Iran is foolish enough to attack American deployed forces in the region or civilian targets like our embassies and consulates or. Uh, ramp up their campaign of terrorism in in Europe and the United States, uh, and we are damaged in some way. Then I think Trump has no alternative but a massive response, uh, and I would hope that he would feel the same way if the Iranians also mistakenly attacked the Gulf Arab countries going after their oil infrastructure whatever the targets might be, uh, and I think that should produce a comparable response from the United States that I think is much more certain. You, you, you, you have observed him uh in decision making action, uh, as, as, as it, as it were, um, Steve Bannon, who is a very prominent uhAA advocate. Uh, ideologue, he said, he said last night, um, he said that if America effectively if America joins Israel uh in um attacking Iran’s nuclear program, it would tear America apart, and other MAGA supporters have, have, have um delivered this line. How much do you think does that sort of position impinge on Uh, on Trump’s thinking is, is, is it when he’s weighing a decision like this, is he weighing it in terms of the, the, the geopolitical risks, or is he thinking, uh, of the domestic political factors? Well, mostly he’s thinking about Donald Trump and um uh he wants to be center stage and uh frankly the past 48 hours have been wonderful for him because what are we talking about? What is he going to decide. Uh, uh, I’ve known Bannon for a long time. He’s very bright. Uh, I think he’s an astute observer of the American political scene, and he’s trying to say to Trump, your base is gonna be unhappy. Uh, but I think the, the bulk of the real maggot trumpers will support Trump if he decides to take military action. I think the threats of Tucker Carlson and some of these other nut cases are hollow. The MAGA base will stay loyal, but there is interesting evidence just out this morning in a Washington Post poll, and it’s only only one poll, but it shows why those who say. That Trump has completely changed the Republican Party or wrong. This is a poll taken on should the US support Israel and take military action at a time when Trump himself is obviously publicly undecided. Polls shows overall 25% are in favor of military action, 45% are against, 30% unsure. Uh, which I find a little surprising that it’s so negative on the use of force, but here’s the really interesting thing, which is the party breakdown. Democrats, 9% support the use of force. 67% oppose the use of force. 24% unsure. Republicans, Republicans with Trump publicly unstated. Republicans 47% support the use of force. 29% opposed, 24% unsure. That is the breakdown of the American parties before Donald Trump. Republicans taking a more assertive line. Democrats taking a more pacific line. And to me, that’s confirmation that the Republican Party will not just survive Donald Trump, uh, but, but we will, we will move beyond them. If Trump decides to use force, the Republican support number will go to 75% or 80%. Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu is obviously very important for all this. In, in your memoir that you wrote after your uh time serving in the uh in the first Trump administration, I, I think you said something like that on one occasion you were asked and you say Trump would back BB. Um, Can you, can you just explain the nature of their, of their relationship, because this is obviously pivotal to where we are now. Well, as they say on Facebook, it’s complicated, uh, uh. Trump has a lot of support from evangelical Christians in the United States and of all the different communities in the American electorate, the strongest, most pro-Israel community is the evangelical Christians, so he heard during the first term from uh. Uh, from Mike Pence, from David Friedman, our ambassador in Jerusalem, from a lot of us, uh, why support for Israel was important to him politically. But at the end of the Trump administration you could see strains in the relationship already uh that uh that Trump just didn’t get along with Netanyahu as much as people thought he was very upset that Netanyahu quickly called Joe Biden to congratulate him on winning the election because as we all know, Biden didn’t win the election. Uh, Trump, Trump is jealous of Netanyahu because of all the politicians in the world, the one better at getting. Uh, press attention is Netanyahu and, uh, uh, I think this greats on Trump. So right now he, he sees Netanyahu as being at the head of the parade and that’s where Trump should be, uh, in Trump’s view of the world and I think, I think it’s, uh, this, this has also shown the indecision, uh, in Trump’s own mind on Thursday night when the Israeli attack started. Marco Rubio issued a statement that was notable in two respects. It said this is a unilateral action by Israel, meaning no US involvement, and there was no customary statement of support for Israel. Now I don’t know that Trump read it before Marco Rubio sent it out, but I’m sure he approved the substance of it. By the next morning when it looked like things were going pretty well for the Israelis, Trump issued a statement of support for Israel. Later in the day, he said the results were excellent. Of course I suppose that depends on what side you’re on. And then later in the day he said the stock market will go up because of the attacks, desperately crawling to get to the front of the parade, and now he’s just, he, he, he wants to be on the winning side because Donald Trump is always a winner, as you all know. There are winners and losers in the world, and Trump is always a winner. He can’t decide which side is going to win now, but he’s coming to the point where he does have to make that decision, as the saying goes, uh, in the US, when you come to a fork in the road, take it, and that’s what he’s going to have to do. How long, how long has he got to make that decision, do you think? I think it’s a matter of days because I think the Israelis are progressing at a relatively rapid rate in their in their efforts. We don’t know for sure. We, we don’t, at least publicly know what the full extent of the damage they’ve caused, but, um, and they do have the leisure of time. They’ve eradicated as far as we can tell, Iranian air defense capabilities so they can pick and choose. But I think there’s a lot to do and and they’re gonna wanna know whether and to what extent uh Trump is gonna get involved. You, you’ve been following this issue for for a very long time and have long been an advocate for uh for for intervention against Iran’s nuclear uh program. If America doesn’t uh join Israel’s campaign, do you, do you, can, can Israel take out the Fordow. Um, sent complex without America or, or, or, or are some of these reports have been coming out true that it does that that that it does need America’s bunker busting bomb. I just ask you because I know that you’ve been looking at this for for many years. Well, there certainly is a lot of information. I mean, the bunker busters will finish Fordo and, and they will also conclusively finish Naans. Um, but Israel has, uh, capabilities just on the Tans. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reversed its initial assessment of the impact of the Israeli attack to say that they believe that that the centrifuges deeply buried in the Tans may have been very substantially damaged. I don’t think we know personally I would say if Trump did get involved, I’d drop drop a few bunker busters on the Tons just to be sure that we’re right. Uh, but what Israel can do at Fordo, which is buried under a mountain, is close the entry shafts and close the air shafts, and if you can’t breathe, you can’t enrich uranium. Now that would require preventive maintenance every every so many months to stop the Iranians from digging, uh, the, the entry tunnels open again. The, the problem that the, the, the risk here that uh that uh we’re not talking about is. Uh, the potential that that our intelligence is not perfect, that that has happened from time to time and that there are facilities that we don’t know about that obviously we’re not going to be destroying the facilities that I worry about most are uh centered around whether Iran has aspects of its nuclear program buried under a mountain in North Korea of which I think there’s a real possibility, so, uh, that’s, that’s obviously uh out of out of the question of reaching at this point. And Russia’s support for Iran, is that, is that going to be a factor or is Russia holding back I think Russia is overwhelmed with Ukraine. I don’t, I don’t think they can come to Iran’s defense. They couldn’t come to the defense effectively of this of the Assad regime when it was overthrown recently. I think the fact that Putin called Trump to wish him happy birthday very nice way, wished him a happy birthday in a very nice way because they’re good friends and they have such a good personal relationship. And really out of the goodness of his heart to offer to mediate between Iran and Israel, that’s about the limit of Soviet of Russian power here. Um, Ambassador, we are, we are generous types at the Financial Times. I’m going to read you all a sentence from The Wall Street Journal. Uh, it’s a column that appeared this week in which, uh, near the end of the, near the end of it, these two lines. The only lasting foundation for Middle East peace and security is overthrowing the Ayatollahs. America’s declared objective should be just that. Uh, this was written by Ambassador Bolton, um, unfortunately not for us, but there you go. Um, uh, ambassador, I mean, I think. You could argue that it’s one thing to take on Iran’s nuclear program. It’s obviously, well I would say it’s another thing to to push for regime change. The world has seen how regime change ended in Iraq. It was pretty messy and how it ended in Libya. Why are you so confident that regime change is the right thing to do? Well, I’d encourage everybody to read the whole op ed lays lays all this out at somewhat greater length, but the, the, the, the, as I say in the in the piece, there’s no question here about ground troops being involved. The fact is the Ayatollahs are weaker than at any point since the revolution of 1979. Uh, ever since 2018, 2019, they’ve had severe economic difficulties caused only in part by the sanctions, mostly caused by bad economic policy. Uh, you’ve got massive amounts of discontent really across the country. Young people, 60% of the population is under 30. No, they could have a different life. They can see it across the Gulf among the ethnic minorities Kurds, Azeri, Baluchis, Arabs, uh, there’s widespread discontent and a search for autonomy. Persians, depending on your estimate, are only 50 to 60% of the total population, uh, and, and, uh. Uh, with, with the, the murder two years ago of Masi Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was not wearing a hijab, uh, and which provoked some of the, some of the most extensive demonstrations around the country under the Woman Freedom Life movement, uh, you’ve got a challenge there that represented not just an objection to the dress code. But a fundamental assault on the legitimacy of the regime because if the Ayatollahs do not speak the word of God on the dress code, they don’t speak the word of God on anything when you add all that together now with the pummeling that the terrorist, uh, uh, surrogates like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis have taken with the fall of the Assad regime a huge setback to Iran and now the destruction of. Uh, its ballistic missile production capabilities and the ongoing destruction of the nuclear program, all of this represents to Iran untold billions of dollars spent over decades lying in ashes now with no benefit whatever to the people of Iran. This is what ought to fragment the regime at the top and bring about the possibility of its downfall. It’s, it’s far from certain. But the level of opposition inside the country, the weakness of the regime, the absence of a clear succession plan for the supreme Leader who’s 85 or 86 and sick, uh, all, all indicate that, uh, that it, it’s, it’s very close to falling. I, I, to be fair on the ambassador, he did also end by saying success is far from guaranteed, but the moment is auspicious, so I’m not going to read any more of our rival’s columns, but um thank you for amplifying that. I appreciate obviously that you know the the the the the the context and, and I’m sure that that many people, most people, probably every possibly everyone in the room. would agree that it it it’s, it’s a pretty unattractive regime, uh with a pretty dire record of, should we say governance, um, but nonetheless, just to, just to return to this, there is also though, isn’t there a sort of huge risk that that you you you end up with uh with this uh regime overthrown and and a country that tears itself apart and becomes a source of colossal instability for the region, uh uh and that that. Um, absolutely outweighs the advantage of seeing the end of the regime. Well, uh, the, the, uh, the risk of, uh, of the country splitting is real. I think that that’s a possibility. Uh, the risk of, uh, the Ayatollahs being replaced by a military dictatorship is, is possible, um, but you know, in 1979, uh, at the time of the Islamic Revolution, Iran was approaching modernity and that was one of the reasons the Shah was so vulnerable, um, so I think the population is well educated, it’s sophisticated. Uh, uh, you can’t say for certain, but I, I think, I think the worst case scenario, uh, is extremely unlikely.