John Bolton in Trump campaign vs. Trump administration


On War & Peace: Advocated violent regime change in Tehran and Pyongyang

Bolton, despite his avuncular mustachioed appearance, is an unrepentant champion of foreign intervention who has advocated violent regime change in Tehran and Pyongyang. The Trump-Kim summit almost didn't happen following Bolton's ill-advised remark about North Korea adhering to the "Libya model"--a reference that North Korean officials took as a threat. (Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi was famously run out of power and executed in the streets after agreeing to dismantle his weapons program--a fate that Kim is particularly sensitive to avoid.) North Korean officials responded angrily, characterizing the comparison as "absurd" and "awfully sinister," and Bolton was seemingly benched. Though he ultimately attended the summit in Singapore, Bolton's absence from an Oval Office meeting between Trump and a top North Korean official, Kim Yong Chol, days before the meeting on June 12, was particularly noteworthy.
Source: Vanity Fair on 2018 Trump Administration Jun 18, 2018

On Foreign Policy: The two-state solution is dead; split up "Palestine"

Meet John Bolton, Trump's new National Security Adviser. 'The two-state solution is dead,' Bolton once wrote, claiming that Gaza should be given to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.

"Just as a matter of empirical reality, the two-state solution is dead," Bolton told Breitbart during the Obama administration's attempt to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Bolton even called for a "three-state solution" in which Gaza would be handed over to Egypt and the West Bank returned to Jordan.

"As long as Washington's diplomatic objective is the 'two-state solution'--Israel and 'Palestine'--the fundamental contradiction between this aspiration and the reality on the ground will ensure it never comes into being," he wrote, claiming that "the only logic underlying the demand for a Palestinian state is the political imperative of Israel's opponents to weaken and encircle the Jewish state."

Source: Ha'Aretz (Israel) on 2018 Trump Administration "Meet Bolton" Mar 23, 2018

On War & Peace: To stop Iran's bomb, bomb Iran

To stop Iran's bomb, bomb Iran. Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal Iran's ambitions.

The Obama administration's increasingly frantic efforts to reach agreement with Iran have spurred demands for ever-greater concessions from Washington. The president's policy is empowering Iran, effectively handing a permit to Iran's nuclear weapons establishment.

The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program. Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure. The inconvenient truth is that only military action can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.

Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran's opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.

Source: NYTimes on 2018 Trump Administration, "Iran's bomb" Mar 26, 2015

The above quotations are from Campaign promises compared to follow-up actions taken by the Trump Administration.
Click here for other excerpts from Campaign promises compared to follow-up actions taken by the Trump Administration.
Click here for other excerpts by John Bolton.
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Page last updated: Mar 03, 2022