Former national security adviser John Bolton pushed back at President Trump’s claim that “nobody” expected Iran to target neighboring countries in retaliation for the U.S-Israeli war against Tehran, saying he briefed Trump on multiple such scenarios in the president’s first term.
Speaking on CNN Tuesday evening, Bolton said that on multiple occasions he brought up scenarios in which Iran was attacked and responded with retaliatory strikes in the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere.
“Well, I know for a fact that he was aware of those potentials. I raised the option of regime change in Iran several times during the time I was national security adviser,” Bolton said.
Trump claimed Monday that Iran wasn’t “supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East,” including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. Tehran has also attacked tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for crude oil.
“Nobody expected that. We were shocked,” he said at a Kennedy Center board meeting at the White House.
Later that day when asked whether he was surprised that nobody briefed him ahead of time that Iran might retaliate in such a way, Trump replied: “Nobody, nobody, no, no, no. No, the greatest experts, nobody thought they were going to hit – they were – I wouldn’t say friendly countries, they were like neutral. They lived with them for years.”
Numerous experts, however, had publicly warned that Iran would likely respond to attack by targeting nearby U.S. allies, with top Iranian officials themselves vowing that Tehran would do so.
Bolton, who served under Trump before a public falling out, said he was surprised by Trump’s claims.
He said that every time he raised the scenario of striking Iran in a push for a regime change, others “raised a whole long list of difficulties that are entailed.”
“If you’re going to embark on it you better have answers to them, and certainly closing the Strait of Hormuz was always one of them and so were attacks on the Gulf Arab states, particularly their oil infrastructure, so he knew about it in his first term,” Bolton said. “I find it hard to believe that he forgot about it in the intervening years.”
Trump and his administration have faced mounting criticism over his handling of the war in Iran, which he began with shifting objectives and no clear end in sight. Now in its third week, the war has led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and injuries to at least another 200, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and criticisms from allies and within the administration.
“Look, if we left right now it would take 10 years for them to rebuild, but we’re not ready to leave yet, but we’ll be leaving in the near future,” Trump said Tuesday when asked about plans for a post-war Iran.
On Tuesday Joe Kent, the national counterterrorism director, became the first high-level U.S. official to resign in protest of the conflict, claiming in a letter to Trump that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
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