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.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

This article appeared in the Tribune-Review on Febraury 11, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
February 11, 2017

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington this Wednesday to meet with President Donald Trump. While the two leaders have a full agenda to cover — including international terrorism, the ongoing carnage in Syria and Israel’s continuing efforts to find peace with its neighbors — Iran’s nuclear-weapons program undoubtedly will dominate their discussions.

Rightly so. Iran’s long-standing program to develop deliverable nuclear weapons is a palpably existential threat to Israel and friendly Arab states in the Middle East. Joint Iranian-North Korean work on missiles and quite likely on nuclear matters demonstrates that the threat is truly worldwide. It is no accident that the Jan. 29 Iranian missile test that provoked Trump’s strong response involved testing a re-entry vehicle. Missiles designed to launch weather satellites into orbit need not be designed for re-entry, but missiles delivering nuclear weapons to their targets obviously do.

CALL FOR A ‘COMMON STAND’

Just before meeting last week with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Netanyahu told Israel’s Cabinet that the West needed to take a “common stand” against “Iranian aggression.” Unfortunately, after Barack Obama’s fatally flawed June 2015 Vienna nuclear deal with the ayatollahs, the West is badly divided. The Vienna agreement’s elimination of economic sanctions against Iran has enticed Europeans in particular to enter extensive trade and investment dealings with Tehran. This is precisely what Iran intended: to make it difficult, if not impossible, to restore meaningful international sanctions once the West realized its basic strategic mistake in striking the deal and its frightening long-term consequences.

As long as Obama remained president, Iran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs had little to fear. The advent of Trump’s White House, however, has changed all that. The new administration’s tough rhetoric and renewed sanctions demonstrated clearly that critics of Obama’s appeasement policy have taken command in Washington. They now face the question of how to pull the United States out of the hole into which Obama put it — and to do so as soon as possible.

Accordingly, Trump and Netanyahu can make progress toward accomplishing several objectives at this week’s meeting. First, they should fashion a diplomatic strategy to recreate the West’s common political resolve to prevent the ayatollahs from ever getting nuclear weapons. The emphasis should be on “effective.” Strong rhetoric, military maneuvering and economic sanctions all have their place, but even the now-defunct sanctions regime had not slowed down Iran’s nuclear and missile efforts. Putting a tough-minded Western coalition against Iran back together will face heavy going, but it is both vital and urgent.

Second, and to that end, Israel and America must enhance their intelligence-gathering capabilities and cooperation. We know already that Iran has significantly shredded the Vienna deal’s provisions regarding heavy-water production and missile testing. Since the ayatollahs’ project to obtain deliverable nuclear weapons has been an animating desire of their regime since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, we can safely assume they are still at it, likely violating many other provisions of the Vienna deal.

We can also infer that Obama gave very low priority to uncovering and investigating Iranian breaches. Undoubtedly, there is fertile ground for Trump’s new intelligence-community leadership and the Israeli government to compare notes on what nefarious actions Iran has taken since the Vienna deal.

TWO LEADING ROGUE STATES

Moreover, we know that Iran and North Korea, the two leading rogue states, have cooperated for over 25 years on ballistic missiles, and there is compelling anecdotal evidence they are similarly cooperating on nuclear matters. Working with South Korea, Japan and others, America and Israel must do far more to investigate potential linkages than in the past eight years.

Third, Trump and Netanyahu must address how to eradicate ISIS without enhancing Iran’s influence across the Middle East. Obama’s approach to ISIS, a slow-motion campaign that could take years to reach its objectives, if ever, actually strengthens Tehran’s hand in the region along with its surrogates and allies, such as Hezbollah, the Assad regime and the current Baghdad government. Even if ISIS is ultimately defeated under Obama’s approach, Iran will emerge the real victor. Trump has already ordered the Pentagon to review U.S. military options. Now, he and Netanyahu should develop a comprehensive political framework into which the new military strategy will fit.

Wednesday’s meeting in Washington has the potential to change overnight the last eight years of American retreat from the Middle East and from the great global threats of our time, such as nuclear proliferation. Not all the problems will be resolved in one meeting, but the importance of this encounter cannot be overemphasized.

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.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton discussed the prospective relocation of America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem:

“One of the things that distinguished Donald Trump, and you can see it even in his first days in office, is during the campaign he said ‘I’m going to do X, Y, and Z’ – and miraculous to behold, he’s actually doing it on so many different fronts, internationally and domestically.”

“You can move the embassy by taking the plaque off the wall at our consulate building in Jerusalem and putting up a sign that says ‘U.S. Embassy.’ You can build a bigger embassy, the full-scope embassy, obviously over a longer period of time, but you could make the dramatic move quickly.”

“Once you slow down, once you miss the chance to strike dramatically in the early days…once you give up that opportunity, the cost actually mounts.”

“Israel has the land. Let’s forget the legalities. Israel has control of the territory. They believe it’s their land, dating back historically, and they’re building settlements on it. I tell you what, nobody’s going to stop them.”