China is our last diplomatic hope for North Korea

August 13, 2017

This article appeared in The Hill on August 13, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
August 13, 2017

Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice acknowledged last week that America’s policies regarding North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program over the last three administrations had failed. She said, rightly, “You can call it a failure. I accept that characterization of the efforts of the United States over the last two decades.”

Former Vice President Al Gore said much the same. They should know. They served under President Bill Clinton, who started things rolling downhill with the Agreed Framework of 1994. This misbegotten deal provided Pyongyang 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil annually and two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for the North’s promise to abandon its nuclear-weapons efforts.

Pyongyang violated its promise before the ink was dry. In 1999, former Secretary of State James Baker denounced Clinton’s approach as “a policy of appeasement.” Baker’s characterization also applies to much of the subsequent U.S. diplomacy. North Korea has always been willing to promise to abandon its nuclear ambitions to get tangible economic benefits. It just never gets around to honoring its commitments.

After 25 years of failure, we need not tarry long (or at all) on more diplomacy with Pyongyang. Fred Ikle once characterized the North as capable of “boundless mendacity.” He was being charitable. Talking to North Korea is worse than a mere waste of time. Negotiations legitimize the dictatorship, affording it more time to enhance its nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities.

Today, only one diplomatic option remains, and it does not involve talking to Pyongyang. Instead, President Trump should urge President Xi Jinping that reunifying the Korean Peninsula is in China’s national interest. This is a hard argument to make, requiring reversal of decades of Chinese policy. It should have been broached years ago, but it is still doable. There is now growing awareness in China that maintaining the two Koreas, especially given the current nuclear crisis, does not benefit China long-term.

Historically, the Korean Peninsula’s 1945 partition was always intended to be temporary. Kim Il-Sung’s 1950 invasion of South Korea and three years of ultimately inconclusive war resulted in hardening the bifurcation into its current manifestation. Beijing has backed the status quo, believing that North Korea provided a buffer between Chinese territory and U.S. military forces.

Maintaining its satellite, however, has been expensive and risky. China has long supplied more than 90 percent of the North’s energy needs, and vast quantities of food and other assistance to sustain Pyongyang’s gulag. China has also expended enormous political and diplomatic energy, costing it precious international credibility, to protect the North’s erratic regime.

Initially, China saw the North’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs as a problem for America, Japan and South Korea rather than itself. That notion has disappeared, however, under the harsh prospect that today’s nuclear crisis will be merely the first of many with North Korea. Moreover, Japan is now increasingly likely to seek its own nuclear capability, a nightmare for China in some respects more troubling than America.

Confronted by this new, deeply threatening reality, Beijing’s views on Korean reunification are ripe for change. China has never applied its uniquely strong economic leverage on Pyongyang because it feared so doing could cause catastrophic collapse of the North’s regime. That would in turn produce two unacceptable consequences: massive Korean refugee flows across the border into China, and American and South Korean troops crossing the DMZ and quickly reaching the Yalu and Tumen Rivers.

The answer to China’s fear of uncontrolled collapse is a jointly managed effort to dismantle North Korea’s government, effectively allowing the swift takeover of the North by the South. China can start by quietly bribing the Kim regime’s top military and civilian officials, offering political asylum and a safe exile for them and their families in China, while simultaneously cutting off energy and other supplies to the North. Seoul can also offer inducements to key North Korean leaders, reminding them what life could be like in a post-Kim world.

Simultaneously, massive information efforts should be launched throughout the North to spread word quickly on what is happening. The population may lack cell phones and the Internet, but they are far more aware of the outside world than conventional stereotypes. The end of North Korea, and hence the end of its nuclear threat, would be inevitable. The process will undoubtedly be dangerous and somewhat chaotic, but far less so than a completely uncontrolled collapse. And whatever the risks, they pale before the risks of nuclear conflict emanating from the erratic Kim regime.

Washington can offer Beijing two assurances to assuage its concerns. First, we would work closely with China to prevent massive refugee flows either into China or South Korea. Our common interests here are clear. Second, as the North begins to collapse, allied forces would necessarily cross the DMZ to locate and secure Pyongyang’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons stockpiles and to maintain civil order.

These forces would ultimately reach China’s border, but we can commit to Beijing that Washington will not station troops there for a sustained period. Instead, we would pledge to base virtually all U.S. military assets near Pusan at the Peninsula’s southern tip, to be available for rapid deployment around Asia. They would not constitute a watch on the Yalu.

The alternative to this last available diplomatic play is military force. The imperative of protecting innocent American civilians from the long-term threat of North Korea’s nuclear capability dictates that we should be willing to strike those capabilities pre-emptively. But before that, who will argue against this one last realistic diplomatic effort?

John R. Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs at the U.S. Department of State under President George W. Bush.

What’s next in Afghanistan?

August 12, 2017

Today in Afghanistan the pertinent question is what we seek to prevent not what we seek to achieve

This article appeared in TribLIVE on August 12, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
August 12, 2017

As President Trump wrestles with America’s role in Afghanistan, he should first decide what our objectives are today compared to what we wanted immediately after Sept. 11, 2001.

Initially, the United States overthrew the Taliban regime but failed to destroy it completely. Regime supporters, allied tribal forces and opportunistic warlords escaped (or returned) to Pakistan’s frontier regions to establish sanctuaries.

Similarly, while the Taliban’s ouster also forced al-Qaida into exile in Pakistan and elsewhere, al-Qaida nonetheless continued and expanded its terrorist activities. In Iraq and Syria, al-Qaida morphed into the even more virulent ISIS, which is now gaining strength in Afghanistan.

In short, America’s Afghan victories were significant but incomplete. Subsequently, we failed to revise and update our Afghan strategic objectives, leading many to argue the war had gone on too long and we should withdraw. This criticism is superficially appealing, recalling anti-Vietnam War activist Allard Lowenstein’s cutting remarks about Richard Nixon’s policies. While Lowenstein acknowledged that he understood those, like Sen. George Aiken, who said we should “win and get out,” he said he couldn’t understand Nixon’s strategy of “lose and stay in.”

Today in Afghanistan, the pertinent question is what we seek to prevent, not what we seek to achieve. Making Afghanistan serene and peaceful does not constitute a legitimate American geopolitical interest. Instead, we face two principal threats.

TALIBAN’S RETURN TO POWER

First, the Taliban’s return to power throughout Afghanistan would re-create the prospect of the country being used as a base of operations for international terrorism. It is simply unacceptable to allow the pre-2001 status quo to re-emerge.

Second, a post-9/11 goal (at least one better understood today) is the imperative of preventing a Taliban victory in Afghanistan that would enable Pakistani Taliban or other terrorist groups to seize control in Islamabad. Not only would such a takeover make all Pakistan yet another terrorist sanctuary, but if its large nuclear arsenal fell to terrorists, we would immediately face the equivalent of Iran and North Korea on nuclear steroids. Worryingly, Pakistan’s military, especially its intelligence arm, is already thought to be controlled by radical Islamists.

Given terrorism’s global spread since 9/11 and the risk of a perfect storm — the confluence of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — the continuing threats we face in the Afghan arena are even graver than those posed pre-9/11. Accordingly, abandoning the field in Afghanistan is simply not a tenable strategy.

However, accomplishing America’s goals does not require remaking Afghanistan’s government, economy or military in our image. Believing that only “nation building” in Afghanistan could ultimately guard against the terrorist threat was mistaken. For too long, it distracted Washington and materially contributed to the decline in American public support for a continuing military presence there, despite the manifest need for it.

There is no chance that the Trump administration will pursue “nation building” in Afghanistan, as the president has repeatedly made clear. Speaking as a Reagan administration alumnus of USAID, I concur. We should certainly continue bilateral economic assistance to Afghanistan, which, strategically applied, has served America well in countless circumstances during the Cold War and thereafter. But we should not conflate it with the diaphanous prospect of nation building.

Nor should we assume that the military component in Afghanistan must be a repetition or expansion of the boots-on-the-ground approach we have followed since the initial assault on the Taliban. Other alternatives appear available and should be seriously considered, including possibly larger U.S. military commitments of the right sort.

Even more important, there must be far greater focus on Pakistan.

A VOLATILE & LETHAL MIX

Politically unstable since British India’s 1947 partition, increasingly under Chinese influence because of the hostility with India, and a nuclear-weapons state, Pakistan is a volatile and lethal mix ultimately more important than Afghanistan itself. Until and unless Pakistan becomes convinced that interfering in Afghanistan is too dangerous and too costly, no realistic U.S. military scenario in Afghanistan can succeed.

The stakes are high on the subcontinent, not just because of the “Af-Pak” problems but because Pakistan, India and China are all nuclear powers. The Trump administration should not be mesmerized only by U.S. troop levels. It must concentrate urgently on the bigger strategic picture. The size and nature of America’s military commitment in Afghanistan will more likely emerge from that analysis rather than the other way around. And time is growing short.

John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations and, previously, the undersecretary of State for arms control and international security.

The Military Options for North Korea

August 03, 2017

Some sort of strike is likely unavoidable unless China agrees to regime change in Pyongyang

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on August 3, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
August 3, 2017

North Korea test-launched on Friday its first ballistic missile potentially capable of hitting America’s East Coast. It thereby proved the failure of 25 years of U.S. nonproliferation policy. A single-minded rogue state can pocket diplomatic concessions and withstand sustained economic sanctions to build deliverable nuclear weapons. It is past time for Washington to bury this ineffective “carrots and sticks” approach.

America’s policy makers, especially those who still support the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, should take careful note. If Tehran’s long collusion with Pyongyang on ballistic missiles is even partly mirrored in the nuclear field, the Iranian threat is nearly as imminent as North Korea’s. Whatever the extent of their collaboration thus far, Iran could undoubtedly use its now-unfrozen assets and cash from oil-investment deals to buy nuclear hardware from North Korea, one of the world’s poorest nations.

One lesson from Pyongyang’s steady nuclear ascent is to avoid making the same mistake with other proliferators, who are carefully studying its successes. Statecraft should mean grasping the implications of incipient threats and resolving them before they become manifest. With North Korea and Iran, the U.S. has effectively done the opposite. Proliferators happily exploit America’s weakness and its short attention span. They exploit negotiations to gain the most precious asset: time to resolve the complex scientific and technological hurdles to making deliverable nuclear weapons.

Now that North Korea possesses them, the U.S. has few realistic options. More talks and sanctions will fail as they have for 25 years. I have argued previously that the only durable diplomatic solution is to persuade China that reunifying the two Koreas is in its national interest as well as America’s, thus ending the nuclear threat by ending the bizarre North Korean regime. Although the negotiations would be arduous and should have commenced years ago, American determination could still yield results.

Absent a successful diplomatic play, what’s left is unpalatable military options. But many say, even while admitting America’s vulnerability to North Korean missiles, that using force to neutralize the threat would be too dangerous. The only option, this argument goes, is to accept a nuclear North Korea and attempt to contain and deter it.

Why Iran’s quest for ‘arc of control’ must fail

July 17, 2017

This article appeared in the Washington Times on July 17, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
July 17, 2017

For the first time in at least eight years that I’ve been coming to this event, I can say that we have a president of the United States who is completely and totally opposed to the regime in Tehran.

Now there is underway, as there often is in a new American administration, a policy review to determine what U.S. policy will be on a whole range of issues, including how to deal with the regime in Tehran. The outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday.

The Tehran regime is the central problem in the Middle East. There’s no fundamental difference between the Ayatollah Khomeini and President Rouhani. They’re two sides of the same coin.

And it’s clear that the regime’s behavior is only getting worse. Their continued violations of the agreement, their work with North Korea on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles only continues to grow.

But in the region as well, we face a very, very dangerous point. As the campaign to destroy the ISIS caliphate nears its ultimately successful conclusion, we must avoid allowing the regime in Tehran to achieve its long-sought objective of an arc of control from Iran through the Baghdad government in Iraq, to the Assad regime in Syria, and the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. An arc of control, which if it’s allowed to form, will simply be the foundation for the next grave conflict in the Middle East. The regime in Tehran is not merely a nuclear-weapons threat, it’s not merely a terrorist threat, it is a conventional threat to everybody in the region who simply seeks to live in peace and security. The regime has failed internationally, it has failed domestically in economics and politics; indeed, its time of weakening is only accelerating.

There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs, and that opposition is centered in this room today. I have said for over 10 years since coming to these events that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran. The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself. And that’s why before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran.

Ambassador John R. Bolton, who represented the United States at the United Nations under President George W. Bush, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. This excerpt is taken from his remarks at the July 1 rally in Paris.

Trump must withdraw from Iran nuclear deal — now

July 16, 2017

This article appeared in The Hill on July 16, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
July 16, 2017

For the second time during the Trump administration, the State Department has reportedly decided to certify that Iran is complying with its 2015 nuclear deal with the Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”).

If true, it will be the administration’s second unforced error regarding the JCPOA. Over the past two years, considerable information detailing Tehran’s violations of the deal have become public, including: exceeding limits on uranium enrichment and production of heavy water; illicit efforts at international procurement of dual-use nuclear and missile technology; and obstructing international inspection efforts (which were insufficient to begin with).

Since international verification is fatally inadequate, and our own intelligence far from perfect, these violations undoubtedly only scratch the surface of the ayatollahs’ inexhaustible mendaciousness.

Certification is an unforced error because the applicable statute (the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, or “INARA”) requires neither certifying Iranian compliance nor certifying Iranian noncompliance. Paula DeSutter and I previously explained that INARA requires merely that the Secretary of State (to whom President Obama delegated the task) “determine…whether [he] is able to certify” compliance (emphasis added). The secretary can satisfy the statute simply by “determining” that he is not prepared for now to certify compliance and that U.S. policy is under review.

This is a policy of true neutrality while the review continues. Certifying compliance is far from neutral. Indeed, it risks damaging American credibility should a decision subsequently be made to abrogate the deal.

Beyond the procedural question, however, is the importance of swiftly resolving the underlying policy gridlock. President Trump has repeatedly made clear his view that the Iran deal was a diplomatic debacle. It is not renegotiable, as some argue, because there is no chance that Iran, designated by Ronald Reagan as a state sponsor of terrorism in January 1984, will agree to any serious changes. Why should it? President Obama gave them unimaginably favorable terms, and there is no reason to think China and Russia will do us any favors revising them.

Accordingly, withdrawing from the JCPOA as soon as possible should be the highest priority. The administration should stop reviewing and start deciding. Even assuming, contrary to fact, that Iran is complying with the JCPOA, it remains palpably harmful to American national interests. It should not have taken six months to reach this conclusion. Well before Jan. 20, we saw 18 months of Iranian noncompliance and other hostile behavior as evidence. The Trump transition team should have identified abrogating the deal as one of the incoming administration’s highest policy priorities.

Within the Trump administration, JCPOA supporters contend that rejecting the deal would harm the United States by calling into question our commitment to international agreements generally. There is ominous talk of America “not living up to its word.”

This is nonsense. The president’s primary obligation is to keep American citizens safe from foreign threats. Should President George W. Bush have kept the United States in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, rather than withdraw to allow the creation of a limited national missile-defense shield to protect against rogue-state nuclear attacks? Was Washington’s “commitment” to the ABM Treaty more important than protecting innocent civilians from nuclear attacks by the ayatollahs or North Korea’s Kim family dictatorship?

Similarly, President Bush directed that we unsign the treaty creating the International Criminal Court because we had no intention of ever becoming a party. Was he also wrong to extricate American service members and intelligence personnel — not to mention ordinary citizens — from the risk of arbitrary, unjustified and politically motivated ICC detention and prosecution?

Of course, the answer is “no.” The president would be derelict in his duty if he failed to put the interests of U.S. citizens first, rather than worrying about “the international community” developing a case of the vapors. The Trump administration itself has already shown the courage of its convictions by withdrawing from the Paris climate accords. Compared to that, abrogating the JCPOA is a one-inch putt.

We must also urgently reassess the available intelligence on issues like joint Iranian-North Korea nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, free from the Obama administration’s political biases. Cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang is deep and long-standing. North Korea’s July 4 ICBM launch should cause greater interest in the implications for Iran.

Much of the current JCPOA debate would be strategically irrelevant if, as seems virtually certain, the ayatollahs can send a wire transfer to Kim Jung-un to purchase whatever capability North Korea develops.

In years past, appreciation for the Iranian and North Korean threats has invariably been enhanced by greater public awareness of what was at stake. One useful suggestion to that end was made here last week by the Wisconsin Project’s Valerie Lincy. She advocated declassifying the fourth semi-annual report (also required by INARA) specifying incidents of Iranian non-compliance, the first from the Trump administration.

With appropriate protections for intelligence sources and methods, making this report public would undoubtedly help increase public awareness of Iran’s continuing progress, and thereby inform the broader policy debate.

In the last six months, Iran has made six more months of progress toward posing a mortal threat to America and its allies, and now totals two years since the JCPOA was agreed. This U.S. approach is both dangerous and unnecessary. Care to bet how close Tehran — and North Korea — now are? Consider the costs of betting wrong.

John R. Bolton is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.

We negotiate with Russia at our peril

July 10, 2017

This article appeared in The Telegraph on July 10, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
July 10, 2017

Before Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20, media speculation approached hysterical levels. Would it be like the Reagan-Gorbachev get-together at Reykjavik in 1986, or Chamberlain meeting Hitler in Munich in 1938?

Of course, it was like neither. Instead, the encounter was primarily for the leaders to take each other’s measure. This was especially important for Trump, given his opponents’ charges, with no evidence to date, that his campaign colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election.

Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, reported afterwards that Trump opened the meeting by expressing “the concerns of Americans” about Russian election interference. Tillerson emphasised that the discussion was “robust and lengthy”, with Trump returning several times to Russia’s meddling.
Although we do not have Trump’s exact words, US critics immediately attacked him for not referring to his concerns about the intrusions. If Trump did speak broadly about Americans’ worries, he struck the right note. The US is essentially unanimous that no foreign intervention in our constitutional process is acceptable.

But there was an even more important outcome: Trump got to experience Putin looking him in the eyes and lying to him, denying Russian interference in the election. It was predictable Putin would say just that, as he has before (offering the gratuitous, nearly insulting suggestion that individual hackers might have been responsible). Commentators were quick to observe that governments almost never straightforwardly acknowledge their intelligence activities.

But attempting to undermine America’s constitution is far more than just a quotidian covert operation. It is in fact a casus belli, a true act of war, and one Washington will never tolerate. For Trump, it should be a highly salutary lesson about the character of Russia’s leadership to watch Putin lie to him. And it should be a fire-bell-in-the-night warning about the value Moscow places on honesty, whether regarding election interference, nuclear proliferation, arms control or the Middle East: negotiate with today’s Russia at your peril.

On specific issues, the meeting’s outcome was also problematic. A ceasefire agreement in southwestern Syria is a clear victory for Russia, Assad’s regime, Hizbollah terrorists and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Although humanitarian in intention, this deal substantially legitimises Russia’s participation in the Syrian struggle, thereby keeping Assad’s dictatorship alive.

Any ceasefire necessarily relieves pressure on Assad on one front, which he can exploit on another. Even more troubling were Tillerson’s references to the regime’s future, implying discussions with Russia about a post-Assad Syria. If so, this would simply be a continuation of the Obama administration’s delusion that Moscow shared our interest in removing Assad. Russia would acquiesce only if another Russian stooge were to fill his shoes.

Moreover, on North Korea, Tillerson said that Washington wanted to return Pyongyang to the table to discuss rolling back its nuclear weapons programme. This too is a continuation of Obama policies, which brought us to the point where the North is dangerously close to delivering nuclear weapons on targets in the US.

For both Syria and North Korea, such comments reflect the influence of America’s permanent bureaucracy, which has been implementing Obama policies for eight years, and which Trump has yet to redirect.

There was undoubtedly much more to the Trump-Putin meeting. But its major consequence – what Trump learnt from observing Putin in action, lying with the benefit of the best KGB training – will be important for years to come.

Trouble among America’s Gulf allies

July 08, 2017

This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on July 8, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
July 8, 2017

In recent weeks, governments on the Arabian Peninsula have been having a diplomatic brawl. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (together with Egypt and other Muslim countries) have put considerable economic and political pressure on Qatar, suspending diplomatic relations and embargoing trade with their fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member. Kuwait and Oman, also GCC members, have been mediating the dispute or remaining publicly silent.

The Saudis and their supporters are demanding sweeping changes in Qatari policies, including suspending all financial support to the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist groups; joining the other GCC members in taking a much harder line against the nuclear and terrorist threat from Shia Iran and its proxies; and closing Al Jazeera, the irritating, radical-supporting television and media empire funded by Qatar’s royal family.

The United States’ response so far has been confused. President Trump has vocally supported the Saudi campaign, but the State Department has publicly taken a different view, urging that GCC members resolve their differences quietly.

As with so many Middle East disputes, the issues are complex, and there is considerable underlying history. Of course, if they were easy, Saudi Arabia and Qatar would not be nearly at daggers drawn seemingly overnight.

Washington has palpable interests at stake in this dispute and can make several critical moves to help restore unity among the Arabian governments, even though the issues may seem as exotic to the average American as the Saudi sword dance Trump joined during his recent Middle East trip.

TWIN ISSUES TO CONFRONT

Confronting the twin issues of radical Islamic terrorism and the ayatollahs’ malign regime in Iraq are central not only to the Arab disputants but to the United States as well. In addition to providing our good offices to the GCC members, the Trump administration should take two critical steps to restore unity and stability among these key allies.

First, the State Department should declare both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), thus triggering the penalties and sanctions required by law when such a declaration is made. Both groups meet the statutory definition because of their violence and continuing threats against Americans. The Obama administration’s failure to make the FTO designation has weakened our global anti-terrorist efforts.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s defenders argue that it is far from monolithic; that many of its “affiliates” are in fact entirely harmless; and that a blanket declaration would actually harm our anti-jihadi efforts. Even taking these objections as true for the sake of argument, they counsel a careful delineation among elements of the Brotherhood. Those that, in whole or part, meet the statutory FTO definition should be designated; those that do not can be spared, at least in the absence of new information. The Brotherhood’s alleged complexity is an argument for being precise in the FTO designations, not for avoiding any designations whatever.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab governments already target the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization but Qatar does not. That may sound suspicious, but as of now, of course, the United States hasn’t found the resolve to do it either. Once Washington acts, however, it will be much harder for Qatar or anyone else to argue that the Brotherhood is just a collection of charitable souls performing humanitarian missions.

A DIRECT TERRORIST THREAT

Similarly, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps is a direct terrorist threat that has been killing Americans ever since the IRGC-directed attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in October 1983. The only real argument against naming the IRGC is that so doing would endanger Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement, given Tehran’s expected response to an FTO determination.

Second, Trump should follow up his successful Riyadh summit by insisting on rapid and comprehensive implementation of the summit’s principal outcome, the Global Center for Combatting Extremism. This center can provide governments across the Muslim world a face-saving mechanism to do what should have been done long ago, namely taking individual and collective steps to dry up terrorist financing.

One could write books on the intricate financing that supports international terrorism, and finger-pointing at those responsible could take years. But whether terrorists are financed by governments, directly or indirectly, or by individuals or groups, with or without government knowledge or encouragement, it must all stop. Qatar can legitimately complain that it is being unfairly singled out. The proper response is not to let Qatar off the hook but to put every other country whose governments or citizens are financing terrorism on the hook.

Although superficially the ongoing crisis among the oil-producing monarchies may seem a setback to American efforts in the war again terrorism and the struggle to eliminate the Iranian threat, in fact it provides a rare opportunity to make considerable progress on two of our top priorities. The Trump administration should not miss its chance.

Iran: Regime Change is Within Reach

July 03, 2017

This article appeared in the Gatestone Institute on July 3, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
July 3, 2017

The following is a transcript of Ambassador John Bolton’s speech to the Grand Gathering of Iranians for Free Iran, on July 1, 2017.

It’s a great pleasure and an honor to be with you again here today. I must say, we come at a time of really extraordinary events in the United States that the distinguish today from the circumstances one year ago. Contrary to what virtually every political commentator said, contrary to what almost every public opinion poll said, contrary to what many people said around the world, Barack Obama’s first Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not the president of the United States.

So for the first time in at least eight years that I’ve been coming to this event, I can say that we have a president of the United States who is completely and totally opposed to the regime in Tehran. This is the true feeling of the president, and he’s made it very clear — he made it clear during the election campaign last year, he’s made it clear numerous statements and even in tweets since then; he completely opposes the Iran nuclear deal signed by his predecessor.

Now, there is underway, as there often is in a new American administration, a policy review to determine what US policy will be on a whole range of issues, including how to deal with the regime in Tehran. But even as that review goes on, Congress is moving, with what for Congress is great speed, to enact new economic sanctions legislation against the regime in Iran. These sanctions, when they are put in place, will be because of the regime’s suppression of its own people, and because of their continued support for terrorism around the world — they will not be related to the nuclear issue, although the regime in Tehran has said if these sanctions are enacted into law, they will consider it a breach of the agreement.

Well, that’s nothing new, since the regime has been in breach of the agreement for two straight years. And it’s also it’s also critical, as we look at this policy review, to understand what we want the outcome to be and what, in the United States, many of us are working toward. The outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday.

The fact is that the Tehran regime is the central problem in the Middle East. There’s no fundamental difference between the Ayatollah Khamenei and President Rouhani — they’re two sides of the same coin. I remember when Rouhani was the regime’s chief nuclear negotiator — you couldn’t trust him then; you can’t trust him today. And it’s clear that the regime’s behavior is only getting worse: Their continued violations of the agreement, their work with North Korea on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, only continues to grow.

And let’s be clear: Even if somebody were to say to you that the regime is in full compliance with the nuclear deal, it doesn’t make any difference. North Korea is already perilously close to the point where they can miniaturize a nuclear weapon, put it on an intercontinental ballistic missile, and hit targets in the United States. And the day after North Korea has that capability, the regime in Tehran will have it as well, simply by signing a check. That’s what proliferation is, that’s what the threat’s about, and that’s why Donald Trump’s views on North Korea are so similar to his views on the regime in Tehran.

But in the region as well, we face a very, very dangerous point. As the campaign to destroy the ISIS Caliphate nears its ultimately successful conclusion, we must avoid allowing the regime in Tehran to achieve its long-sought objective of an arc of control from Iran, through the Baghdad government in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon — an arc of control, which if it’s allowed to form, will simply be the foundation for the next grave conflict in the Middle East. The regime in Tehran is not merely a nuclear-weapons threat; it’s not merely a terrorist threat; it is a conventional threat to everybody in the region who simply seeks to live in peace and security.

The regime has failed internationally. It has failed domestically, in economics and politics — indeed its time of weakening is only accelerating, and that’s why the changed circumstances in the United States, I think, throughout Europe and here today, are so important.

There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs, and that opposition is centered in this room today. I had said for over 10 years since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran. The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself. And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran! Thank you very much.

John R. Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is Chairman of Gatestone Institute, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad”.

China’s choice on North Korea

April 28, 2017

This article appeared in USA Today on April 28, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
April 28, 2017

For 25 years, U.S. presidents, Republican and Democratic alike, have tried persuasion (through diplomacy) and coercion (through economic sanctions) to induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs. All these efforts have failed. Pyongyang happily commits to denuclearize in exchange for economic benefits, but never honors its commitments.

A 26th year will also fail. North Korea sees deliverable nuclear weapons as its ace in the hole, synonymous with regime survival. When we say “give up your nukes,” Kim Jung Un and his generals hear “give up your regime (and your lives).” They won’t do it.

Barack Obama’s gutting of our nascent missile-defense capabilities has made pre-emptive action more likely. More robust detection and missile systems, although far from perfect, would provide more time and confidence that we could protect innocent American civilians from a terrorist nuclear strike by Pyongyang.

Only one non-military alternative now exists: convincing China that reuniting Korea, essentially by the South peacefully absorbing the North, is in both of our best interests.

China fears that truly applying its enormous economic leverage would collapse the Pyongyang regime, resulting in millions of refugees flowing into China, and American troops positioned on the Yalu River. Washington can assure Beijing that we (and Seoul) also fear massive refugee flows, and would work with China to stabilize the North’s population as its government disintegrated, and provide humanitarian assistance. And China can rest assured we don’t want U.S. forces on the Yalu, but instead want them near Pusan, available for rapid deployment across Asia.

There is a deal here, not based on Pyongyang renouncing its nuclear program, but on China and America ending the North’s threat by peacefully ending the North.

Ironically, a pre-emptive U.S. attack would likely have the consequences Beijing fears: regime collapse, huge refugee flows and U.S. flags flying along the Yalu River. China can do it the easier way or the harder way: It’s their choice. Time is growing short.

Iran & the next Middle East war

April 09, 2017

This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on April 9, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
April 9, 2017

Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists and their state sponsors may not be the only threat from the Middle East. But in the coming years, it definitely ranks first on the list.

Thus, as American decision-makers focus on destroying ISIS in Syria and Iraq, they should also be shaping how that war ends to prevent nuclear Iran from benefiting the most.

Syria’s chemical-weapons attack against rebel forces and President Trump’s forceful response at week’s end clearly demonstrate how complex is the regional balance of forces.

The Pentagon is reviewing options to defeat ISIS as rapidly as possible, thus preventing the radical Islamists from recruiting, training and deploying more terrorists throughout the West. This is all to the good, alleviating the dangers to innocent civilians far from the Middle East conflict.

But the Pentagon and the White House should also emphasize another critical strategic fact inherent in any complex, multiparty conflict: Completely eliminating one combatant invariably benefits all those remaining. Certainly, this current war is as complex and volatile as any America has ever seen. Nonetheless, the United States must defeat ISIS through a strategy that maximizes the postwar position of its allies rather than Iran’s. Conversely, Iran and its regional surrogates (Iraq’s current regime, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorists) should find their relative strength increased as little as possible.

However unpleasant it may be to face the reality of one conflict rapidly succeeding another, our anti-ISIS strategy must recognize Iran’s long-term scenario, where its coalition strives for regional hegemony over Israel and Arab states friendly to America. Iran remains the most prominent state sponsor of terrorism, first designated by Ronald Reagan in 1984 and holding that dubious designation ever since. It is the world’s central banker for international terrorism, funding and arming Shia terrorists like Hezbollah and Sunni terrorists like Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Troubling Trump ‘reality’

It is therefore troubling when Trump administration spokesmen say that leaving Assad in power in Damascus is now a regional reality we must accept. Instead, as we pursue the top priority of destroying ISIS, we should avoid strengthening either Assad’s Iran-backed regime or Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanon and threatens Israel.

In both Iraq and Syria, many Sunnis supported ISIS not because of its extremist ideology but because they opposed, respectively, the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad or Assad’s Alawite regime in Damascus. Accordingly, the last thing we want is a Tehran-dominated Iraqi government increasing its territorial control over Sunni lands in Western Iraq recaptured from ISIS.

We should substantially reverse President Obama’s support to Iraq’s government, as in the ongoing battle for Mosul, which is slowly being obliterated. Baghdad’s forces, especially its Shia militias, are continuing to commit atrocities against the Sunnis and Christians they are supposedly liberating from ISIS, laying the basis for future conflicts.

Divisions among the Kurds are equally complicated; some are reliable allies in Iraq, but others are mortal enemies of Turkey, still a NATO ally, albeit a problematic one.

Tehran’s arc of influence

Tehran’s objective is clear: an arc of influence from Iran through Iraq and Syria, anchored in Lebanon by Hezbollah. From this geographic base, terrorist attacks against Israel, Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula’s oil-producing monarchies, conventional warfare and ultimately even nuclear weapons are entirely feasible.

There should be little doubt that Iran, whose path to deliverable nuclear weapons was paved by Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement, would readily use or threaten to use those weapons, or provide them to terrorists, to achieve regional hegemony. Iran’s continuing menace as a terrorist state is inextricably linked to its nuclear program, and that is one reason why Obama’s nuclear deal is so inadvisable.

It also explains why meaningful anti-terrorism cooperation with Russia is impossible as long as Russia aligns itself with the ayatollahs.

The grim reality is that Russia and Iran are functional allies in this and probably future Middle East wars, less interested today in destroying ISIS than in consolidating and expanding their positions in preparation for the next conflict.

Russia stood by Assad even when his prospects looked bleakest during Syria’s bloody post-2011 civil war. Moscow was determined not only to maintain its Tartus naval facility in Syria, but to expand its reach, regaining levels of influence unmatched since Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet military advisers in the 1970s.

By unequivocally calling for ISIS’s immediate defeat, candidate Trump marked victory in this critical aspect of the war on terror a principal goal of his administration, distinguishing himself clearly from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now, to re-establish real international peace and security, we should achieve victory over ISIS in ways that protect America and its friends against the continuing nuclear and terrorist threats from Tehran’s radical Islamist regime.

Posts by: Eric Sherred

Today in Afghanistan the pertinent question is what we seek to prevent not what we seek to achieve

Some sort of strike is likely unavoidable unless China agrees to regime change in Pyongyang