Bolton: Israel could strike Iran

Former UN Secretary John Bolton said that military action against Iran by Israel is a possibility that must be considered by the next administration.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Israel has the political will to use military force against Iran’s [nuclear] program,” said Bolton during remarks at a Heritage Foundation discussion on Iran and the next administration.

“We know from the bombing of the Osirac reactor outside of Baghdad in 1981 and we know from last September when Israel destroyed that North Korean reactor being built on the banks of the Euphrates river, that confronted with the prospect of a nuclear neighbor Israel, a nuclear enemy nearby, that Israel won’t hesitate a strike.”

Bolton said that Iran’s ability to reach this state portrayed the drawbacks of diplomacy, explaining that the five years Europe spent in negotiation with Iran bought Iran time to develop their nuclear capabilities.

“Negotiation is no different than any other human activity. It has costs as well as benefits and I don’t mean monetary costs, I mean opportunity costs.”

The former UN Secretary also discussed the risks surrounding the politicization of intelligence and said that the revision of data based on political bias has been a common occurrence. According to Bolton, the 2003 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that concluded Iran suspended its nuclear program suffered from such bias.

“It was written in a way that was designed to be leaked…the fact that the White House was weak and succumbed to it is no justification for the way that report was put together.”

Bolton raised the possibility of ceasing future publication of NIEs.

“If intelligence agencies have data and have analysis that’s persuasive, they ought to be willing to put it out in the community of policy makers, not in the New York Times and other publications, but in a classified setting.”