John Bolton on War & Peace

Supported missile strike on Iran for drone shoot-down

As the New York Times described the passage: "You can sense Bolton's excitement when he describes going home 'at about 5:30' for a change of clothes because he expected to be at the White House 'all night.' It's therefore an awful shock when Trump decided to call off the strikes at the very last minute, after learning they would kill as many as 150 people."

Advocated violent regime change in Tehran and Pyongyang

Abrogate the Iran nuclear deal; encourage Israel to attack

He has also been a strong critic of the nuclear accord with Tehran, writing on Twitter that "the Iran nuclear deal was a strategic mistake in 2015. This deal needs to be abrogated and America must craft a new reality that reflects the actions of the Iranian regime."

Bolton also advocated for Israel to attack Iran to rein in its nuclear ambitions: "Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed," he wrote in The New York Times in 2015.

To stop Iran's bomb, bomb Iran

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.

ISIS, despite a few airstrikes, is alive & well

Let's just get to the critical facts:
• Radical Islamic terrorists are openly attacking civilian targets
• Iran is building a nuclear weapons program, and getting away with it
• American companies are being hacked by terrorists
• ISIS, despite a few airstrikes, is alive & well
• Russia continues to defy Obama because he is weak

Military force in Syria is counterproductive

Bolton said the Syrian opposition contains factions that are deeply hostile to the U.S., and there's no indication that propping them up would be any better for American interests. The U.S. would be better off focusing on threats emanating from Iran, he said. "If you use massive military force against Assad, then that will tip the balance, which I think would be a mistake," Bolton said, acknowledging that the situation is complicated. "If you use minimal force, you won't make the point about deterrence."

Leaving Afghanistan is act of surrender in war on terror

According to polls, Americans are weary of the Afghan conflict, so Obama sees another chance to declare the war on terror over and also to score domestic political points. Americans are "war weary" about Afghanistan for specific reasons. As president, Obama has repeatedly insisted there was no rationale for a "war on terrorism" and that he will end the wars he inherited.

Iraq is better off now than under Saddam

• MYTH 1: Iraq is worse off now than under Saddam. (This charge could only come from people with a propensity to admire totalitarianism. Iraq has certainly gone through a hard decade, but its citizens now have a chance, denied them under Saddam, to forge a new society.)
• MYTH 2: Wars to impose democracy invariably fail. (Whether true or not, this is irrelevant; such arguments played no measurable role in the decision to end Saddam's regime.)
• MYTH 3: Bush lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. (America and its allies believed that Iraq had stocks of chemical weapons not because of espionage, but because of Saddam's own 1991 declarations.)
• MYTH 4: US military intervention was far more aggressive than necessary. (The more accurate criticism is that our inconstancy has too often caused us to stop short of achieving desirable objectives. [We should have] liberated Kuwait and then marched to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam during the Gulf War.)

If you want peace, prepare for war

A: It is central to successful US foreign policy that we achieve the overwhelming preponderance of our key objectives diplomatically, without the use of force. But as the Romans said, "si vis pacem, para bellum": If you want peace, prepare for war. George Washington used the maxim in his first State of the Union address, and in our day, Ronald Reagan characterized his policy as "peace through strength." The point is clear. Unfortunately, too many mistake resolve for belligerence. President Obama, for example, acts as if American strength is provocative. This is exactly backwards. It is not our strength that is provocative, but our weakness, which simply emboldens our adversaries to take advantage of what they see as decline and retreat.

2008: Supported Israeli military operations in Gaza Strip

Drone strikes don't get Mirandized; why should others?

1966: I was like a space alien at anti-Vietnam Yale

1970: Joined National Guard to avoid "ludicrous" Vietnam War

North Korea will never give up nuclear weapons voluntarily

The Democratic People Republic of Korea (DPRK) will never give up nuclear weapons voluntarily. If often promises to do so, as it did in the Clinton administration's 1994 Agreed Framework. It will even more readily BARGAIN over that promise, especially in exchange for items of tangible economic and political value, such as fuel, oil, nuclear reactors, "security assurances," or removal from our list of state sponsors of terrorism. The DPRK will gladly "engage" with us, accept our concession, and then violate its own commitments. The DPRK has followed this game plan successfully many times, and it has every reason to believe it will continue to succeed into the future.

In short, the Clinton policy and the Agreed Framework were classic illustrations of the delusion that a rogue state could be coaxed out of nuclear weapons, and were embarrassments to the US.

Throughout Bush presidency, Iranian nukes were a problem

I certainly did not accomplish what I wanted to do on Iran. I was not able to convince enough other people above me of the seriousness of Iran's threat; I suggested early on a multilateral diplomatic course that others hijacked and ran in slow motion, to my dismay and to our detriment; and finally, time just ran out on me as I left State.

China likes a divided Korean peninsula

1. China fears a wave of Korean refugees across the Yalu River, with its attendant destabilizing political and economic consequences.
2. China fears the loss of the DPRK itself, given that South Korea and American forces would undoubtedly move to fill the security vacuum that the DPRK's implosion would entail.

Extend international order friendly to our security.

Conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.

As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests? Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

1. we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
2. we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
3. we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
4. we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.