John Bolton: Biden Is An Embarrassment To The United States

In a scathing rebuke on Sunday, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton criticized President Joe Biden’s stance of urging Israel against retaliating to Iran’s assaults.

During an interview with CNN, Bolton didn’t mince words, labeling Biden as a source of “embarrassment to the United States.”

Reflecting on the recent onslaught where Iran unleashed around 300 drones and missiles towards Israel, Bolton emphasized the necessity of a robust response from Israel. He stressed, “unless Iran sees a powerful response, that risk will continue.” He dismissed the notion of proportionality, asserting that deterrence is established by conveying to the adversary the repercussions of their actions. Bolton stated, “The way you establish deterrence is by telling your adversary, if you ever try that again, the price you will pay will be so much higher than any gain you think you can get, you shouldn’t even think about it.”

“So I think Israel has a wide range of potential targets. You start by flattening Iran’s air defense capabilities,” he added. “Next, you might go after headquarters of the regular military and the Revolutionary Guard. You could consider going after their oil infrastructure, the oil fields, the distribution pipelines, the export port facilities.”

“And, most importantly, I think Israel should be looking at this as an opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which is the existential threat that Israel faces,” he added. “I don’t know what they will do. I can’t predict it. But I will tell you this. If Joe Biden, as some press reports have it, is urging the Israelis not to retaliate at all, he is an embarrassment to the United States.”

Bolton said that it “is an American interest to make sure that Iran, which is the principal threat to international peace and security in the region, is, at a minimum, put in its place to spare Israel, to spare the Gulf Arabs, to spare us from the threat that they pose.”

Bolton criticized those in the US who say that diplomacy should be what Israel pursues. “Well, how well is diplomacy working so far? Hamas this morning again rejected the ceasefire plan,” he said. “And, by the way, I have heard from people in Israel they believe there are less than 20 hostages still alive, that perhaps 100 of them are dead. And if that’s true, and if Hamas knows it, but has been negotiating these past months on the basis of 40 coming out, with more possibly later, and Hamas itself saying they can only find 27, Hamas may have been conducting a deception operation to build up pressure on Iran, knowing full well it could never meet the diplomatic goals of the administration.” He added that “deterrence failed 320 times last night against Israel. If Iran doesn’t feel the pain, I think it’s only got to get worse for Israel.”

{Matzav.com}