Bolton Actively Pushed War with Iran

USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) usa navy nuclear aircraft carrier resupplying anchored in the Mediterranean sea while visiting Haifa port, Israel for rest and recreation on 4th of July 2017. By Alexander Turovsky @ Shutterstock.com

Gareth Porter writes at The American Conservative that during his time in the Bush administration, John Bolton actively attempted to instigate military action against Iran. Porter writes:

His is not merely a rhetorical stance: Bolton actively conspired during his tenure as the Bush administration’s policymaker on Iran from 2002 through 2004 to establish the political conditions necessary for the administration to carry out military action.

More than anyone else inside or outside the Trump administration, Bolton has already influenced Trump to tear up the Iran nuclear deal. Bolton parlayed his connection with the primary financier behind both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump himself—the militantly Zionist casino magnate Sheldon Adelson—to get Trump’s ear last October, just as the president was preparing to announce his policy on the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He spoke with Trump by phone from Las Vegas after meeting with Adelson.

It was Bolton who persuaded Trump to commit to specific language pledging to pull out of the JCPOA if Congress and America’s European allies did not go along with demands for major changes that were clearly calculated to ensure the deal would fall apart.