The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that former U.N. ambassador John Bolton advised Tory delegates in Britain this weekend that they should press for “pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities” in Iran.
“Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force,” Bolton said. He added that any strike “should be followed by an attempt to remove” the “source of the problem,” Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
Fleshing out his hawkish dreams on British television, Bolton suggested that the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was a model for the “policy of regime change” he would like to see done in Iran:
QUESTION: It’s not of the course the policy that worked in Iraq though, did it? I mean, that was the policy of regime change.BOLTON: No, but I think it did work in Iraq. … Knowing everything we know today, I think it’s unquestionably the case that we were right to overthrow Saddam. We achieved our strategic objective. I think the world is better off for it. […]
I don’t think you should conflate what happened in the post-Saddam period. And whatever happened and however bad it’s been, doesn’t change the fundamental analytical point that we’re better off without Saddam.
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John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country. Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord (Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-back" from the west.
"I don’t think the use of military force is an attractive option, but I would tell you I don’t know what the alternative is. Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities."
He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the "source of the problem", Mr Ahmadinejad. "If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change … The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."
The fact that intelligence about Iran’s nuclear activity was partial should not be used as an excuse not to act, Mr Bolton insisted. "Intelligence can be wrong in more than one direction." He asked how the British government would respond if terrorists exploded a nuclear device at home…
This is an amazingly goofy simplistic idea – regime change. In Iraq, the Administration’s plan was for the Iraqis to embrace Ahmad Chalabi, a disreputable exile who basicly lived his life outside of Iraq. He ultimately ran in the Iraqi election, receiving < 0.5% of the vote. But, at least in Iraq, there was some notion that Hussein was unpopular. In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected by the Iranians. Is Bolton proposing that we should bump off Iran’s elected President because we don’t like him? Gee, maybe we could do that here in the U.S. We’ve got better grounds here than in Iran, looking at Bush’s Approval Ratings.
This is simply mindless insanity…
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