John Bolton calls for regime change in Iran, warns Obama on Israel

by WorldTribune Staff, November 20, 2016

Iran’s ayatollahs are “the principal threat to international peace and security in the Middle East,” according to John Bolton, said to be under consideration for a Cabinet post in the Trump administration.

Bolton told Breitbart News Daily on Nov. 17 that the only “long-term solution” to erasing the threat Iran poses to the Middle East is regime change.

Former United States ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. /Getty Images
Former United States ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. /Getty Images

The former U.S. ambassador to the UN also warned President Barack Obama against taking any actions in the waning days of his presidency that could hurt Israel at the UN.

Bolton, who served in the George W. Bush administration, said the ouster of the Iranian regime “won’t bring sweetness and light to the region, that’s for sure, but it will eliminate the principal threat.”

Bolton argued that the Iranian people would welcome a new government and the U.S. should back opposition groups looking to topple the current regime.

“I think the people of Iran would long for a new regime…I don’t think the regime is popular, but I think it has the guns,” he said. “And I think there are ways of supporting the opposition that does not involve the use of American military force, that does involve helping the opposition to get a different kind of government.”

Related: Bolton: ISIL, Iran to exploit Obama’s final year as closing window of opportunity, Jan. 31, 2016

Bolton has advocated for attacks on Iran in the past, telling The Jerusalem Post Israel should have carried out a pre-emptive strike on Teheran in 2013.

“Israel should have attacked Iran yesterday – every day that goes by puts Israel in greater danger, every day Iran makes more progress,” he told the Post.

Bolton said he understood why Israel was waiting for the Obama administration to take action, “but the longer Israel waits for something that is not going to happen, the greater the danger Israel is in.”

Bolton made the comments a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was approaching the red line he set out at the UN in the fall of 2012,  when the prime minister said Israel could attack Iran as a last resort to prevent it from gaining nuclear weapons capability.

The nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers was “unacceptable,” describing it as a “total failure” that should be re-thought, Bolton told Breibart News.

Meanwhile, Bolton said in an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis that there is “a lot of speculation over in Turtle Bay at U.N. headquarters about resolutions that recognize a Palestinian state or that try and set a boundary for Israel based on the 1967 ceasefire lines.”

“I think that’d be very inadvisable for the president to do that,” he said.

Obama said in his final speech as president at the UN General Assembly that Israel would be in a better position if it did not “permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land” and Palestinians would be better off if they were to “reject incitement,” according to the Jerusalem Post.