Bolton on Hiding the Facts and Accepting the Unacceptable

Ambassador John Bolton appeared today on The ZOA Middle East Report (WNWR1540 AM in Philadelphia) with Lori Lowenthal Marcus and Steve Feldman. 

Here is the last part of their conversation, in which he notes it is necessary to know “what exactly is at stake here” with respect to the Syrian facility that Israel destroyed on September 6:

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: . . . that’s why people like Peter Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the House have called for every member of Congress to be briefed.  They’re growing suspicious that the Administration is keeping all of this quiet, not because of legitimate intelligence equities, or legitimate military equities, but because they are afraid that if people know what that facility actually was, that it could destroy the six-party talks over North Korea and to tank the Annapolis conference as well. 

FELDMAN:  Ambassador Bolton, where do you see things happening with Iran and its nuclear aims?  Is this attention focusing on Annapolis kind of distracting from that situation?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON:  Well I think it is diverting from the threat that Iran poses.  There is a meeting right now, literally as we speak, this week in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency.  In their most recent report – and this is by Mohammed ElBaradei, who in my view has been an apologist for Iran for some number of years now – even that report says Iran’s cooperation is only reactive; they give up information only when they’re essentially forced to; and most chillingly of all, it says the IAEA has decreasing visibility into the Iranian nuclear program. 

I think Iran is very close to acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.  I think they’ve mastered the science and technology to do so, and I think deferring to the Europeans over the past four-plus years for their negotiation, which has failed to dissuade the Iranians from this strategic decision they have been pursuing, I think it leaves us with very few options.  I think we’re down to two basically:  one is regime change in Teheran, and the other as a last resort is the targeted use of military force against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. 

MARCUS:  When do we know we’re at the last resort?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON:  Well I think we’re very close to it now.  You know, you hear all kinds of different estimates about when Iran will actually have a nuclear weapons capability.  And I think as we’ve seen in recent years, people can legitimately disagree in good faith about these kinds of questions, based on estimates and assumptions and projections, which if changed only slightly can lead to a very different result. 

So I have to say, I do not believe in just-in-time non-proliferation.  I don’t want to take the risk that we have underestimated Iran’s capacity, as we underestimated Iraq’s capacity before the first Persian Gulf war.  They were a lot closer to nuclear weapons then than we had thought.  You can misjudge somebody in many, many directions.  And if you say “well, we’ve got three years until Iran has the bomb, that means we can wait until two years and nine months away before we do something dispositive,” that kind of mentality can get us in a lot of trouble.

Of course, besides (1) regime change and (2) military force, there is a third option:  doing nothing.  Here is a colloquy on this subject from the November 14 One Jerusalem bloggers call with Ambassador Bolton (transcription by Boker tov, Boulder!):

JCI:  . . . The question I wanted to ask you is about the meaning of the word "unacceptable" in international diplomacy. I think the word "unacceptable," as it relates to Iran‘s nuclear weapons program, has now been used by the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, by you as UN Ambassador, and Condoleezza Rice used it again yesterday in her speech in Nashville. And my question is, since the Bush administration has repeatedly used that word, is it possible for the administration to leave office having accepted the unacceptable, or once the American government uses a word like that, does it need to do something conclusive on way or the other?

BOLTON: Well, I’m very worried the Administration will leave without doing anything effective. I used to say when I was in the government that I thought the president was a man of his word and when he said something was unacceptable, what he meant by that was, it was unacceptable. And to me that means, everything else having failed, which is just about where we are, military force as a last resort against the Iranian nuclear program has to be on the table.

I don’t think that’s an attractive option. I’m not looking forward to that happening. I wish we had done more to effect regime change over the past four years; I think we’d be in a very different place if the Europeans has stood with us four years ago; strong economic sanctions [indistinguishable] different, but I think we’ve just about played out the diplomatic option now, and if regime change doesn’t come about quickly, then unless you’re prepared to accept a nuclear Iran, then military force is the only other option.

If you had asked me a year ago, I would’ve said I thought the president was prepared to do it. I think the State Department is telling him today, "Don’t do it, don’t do it." After the election next year they’ll tell him, "Don’t do it, you’re a lame duck, leave it to the next president." I think we’re really at risk at this point, and that’s just a fact.  [Emphasis added].