What John Bolton Gets Wrong About Iran

From the New York Times  March 27, 2015 by Carol Giacoma Article Links HERE

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John Bolton’s best quality may be that he says what he thinks. Diplomats are trained to set aside personal beliefs as they fulfill their professional duties but even when Mr. Bolton was a senior official in the administration of President George W. Bush, and supposed to be exercising discretion, he was brash and outspoken.

In an op-ed published by the New York Times on Thursday, he advocated bombing Iran with characteristic force. “Time is terribly short but a strike can still succeed,” he argued.

Mr. Bolton has been pushing a hardline — military action and regime change — against Tehran for at least a decade. But he leaves out some important context — that he was part of an administration that never seriously sought a negotiated solution with Iran. Nor were they capable of putting together the kind of sanctions against Iran — with buy-in from the major powers — that Mr. Obama did and that Mr. Bolton still finds grievous fault with.

Most people believe the various sanctions helped persuade Iran to come to the negotiating table, where an agreement is said to be within reach, perhaps next week.

Mr. Bolton also avoids two major questions: First, if bombing Iran is such a great idea, why didn’t the Bush administration do it years ago when Iran’s program had a fraction of the equipment and facilities it now possesses and when military action would have been easier? As David Sanger reported in The Times, President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel in 2008 for specialized bunker-busting bombs that Israel wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex.

The options for dealing with Iran have always been pretty straightforward: Accept the fact that Iran has an advanced nuclear program that has yet to produce a weapon but could lead to one. Try to maintain sanctions and a system of containment indefinitely. Take military action against Iran’s many nuclear facilities, which experts say would set back the program by only two years or so. Or negotiate an agreement that would curb the program and guarantee long-term international monitoring.

Mr. Obama is pursuing the only sensible solution.