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In an exclusive interview with India Today TV, former national security adviser to US President Donald Trump John Bolton shares his thoughts on the escalating military tensions in West Asia following the collapse of a ceasefire and a memorandum of understanding between the United States and the Iranian government.
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00:00So as the war clouds intensify in West Asia, joining me now to make sense of all that's
00:06happening is a special guest, John Bolton, former assistant to the President for National
00:11Security Affairs. Good to have you, Mr. Bolton, on the show. We've seen President Donald Trump
00:16now reimpose a naval blockade on all Iranian ports. He's threatened today once again to hit
00:22power plants, bridges next week, unless Tehran resumes negotiations. Is this all spiraling
00:28out of control and leaving the ceasefire and the Iran-U.S. memorandum of understanding
00:34practically dead now? Well, I think the memorandum of understanding basically is dead, and I think
00:42the ceasefire is dead along with it. I think one of the principal reasons we're in this situation
00:49is that the MOU was negotiated with civilian authorities, the Speaker of the Parliament,
00:55the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who don't control the Revolutionary Guard components that have the
01:01missiles, the ships, the mortars, the drones to try and close the Strait of Hormuz. And I think
01:08that's because the U.S.-Israeli attacks really did decimate the top of the Iranian government. I think
01:16now you don't really have a functioning government. You have different pieces, different heads of
01:20authority that are not answerable to a single source. So we've been negotiating with people
01:27who don't hold the cards. You're saying you've been negotiating with people who don't hold the
01:31cards. The one card that Iran believes it's holding is the Strait of Hormuz. So what they've done is
01:36effectively weaponized it, saying that all ships that pass through it will go through with Iranian
01:41permission. Now the U.S. has a very different interpretation of that based on the memorandum of
01:47understanding. What's your take? Has Iran, in a sense, used the one weapon at its disposal
01:53in what's otherwise a very asymmetrical war?
01:57Well, I think the Revolutionary Guard has done that. One question the Trump administration is
02:02going to have to answer at some point is how could they have not seen this coming? I mean,
02:06really, anybody who can read a map can see that the Strait of Hormuz is a choke point.
02:10We've certainly known this since the revolution of 1979. Jimmy Carter's own diary says within weeks
02:18of the Ayatollah Khomeini taking power, he had convened a National Security Council meeting to
02:23consider what to do if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. And why Trump didn't see it or why we
02:29weren't prepared is a question I can't answer. But it's a question Trump is going to have to answer
02:34at some point. It was a big mistake. So is this all a miscalculation? Is all this boiling down to
02:40a Trumpian miscalculation? And he's now trying to scramble back because he's got a midterm poll
02:46coming up in November. He cannot afford to be seen to have in any way surrendered or give it
02:52ceded space to the Iranians. The regime is still in place. Is this all Donald Trump now trying to see
02:59get back some lost ground by trying to virtually force Iran's hand?
03:05Well, Trump has made a lot of mistakes in this before the hostilities began. He didn't prepare
03:10the American people. He didn't consult with friends and allies around the world. He doesn't seem to
03:14have had a strategy. I don't know what his objectives are. We could spend a long time on all the
03:19things
03:20he's done wrong. I think in the case of the MOU, he was motivated almost entirely by domestic U.S.
03:27political considerations. He wanted oil again to come out of the Gulf, to lower global oil prices,
03:33to get the price at the pump in America for American consumers down and lessen the danger to
03:40the Republican Party in the November congressional elections. The MOU has failed now. So Trump is in
03:46a trap of his own making. He launched the war. He didn't think through the implications.
03:51He's got political trouble at home. And he can't find anybody in the Iranian regime to talk to that
03:58makes any difference. So are we, Ambassador Bolton, in West Asia War 2.0? Are we back to a situation
04:06or
04:06slowly inching back to a situation of the kind that we saw, particularly in the month of March and early
04:12April? Well, it certainly appears that way. I think at bottom, though, we've got the same fundamental
04:19conceptual problem is Trump today still cannot tell you what his objectives are. So it's very hard for,
04:26whether you're a military figure or a political official, to say, well, this was our objective,
04:32and we can say for the following reasons we've achieved the objectives. If the objective was
04:37regime change, which I think would have been entirely justifiable, Trump has not done the necessary
04:43preparation for it, and to this day has not done the necessary preparation working with the opposition
04:49inside Iran. It is correct. And I certainly never believed, I don't know anybody who did believe
04:54that you could overthrow the regime in Tehran simply by air power. If we weren't going to put
05:00boots on the ground, we had to have the people of Iran prepared to take necessary steps to help pull
05:05the regime apart at the top, work with the regular army, and take other steps to provide an alternative
05:11to the Ayatollahs. And Trump has done essentially nothing to help achieve that objective.
05:18So where do we go from here? A war that started at the end of February, we are now in
05:22the middle of
05:24July, and then some would say we've again weaponized uncertainty, or certainly Donald Trump has.
05:29We in India are worried about what another choke point in the Strait of Hormuz would mean for the
05:36prices of oil, which we're already seeing climbing. What do you now see happening next? Does anyone
05:42really know what could happen next? Are we simply second-guessing Donald Trump's mind?
05:49Well, what I've proposed, and part of which he has now implemented, is the first thing to do is
05:56reimpose the blockade against the export or import of any products from Iran, so that they get no
06:02revenues from the international sale of oil. And that blockade as of about 12 hours ago is back in
06:09place. Second, I think we can open the southern side of the Strait of Hormuz to allow traffic from
06:17the Gulf Arab states to get in and out. That would get, if successful, a lot of oil back into
06:24international markets. Maybe not at pre-war levels exactly, but not far away from it. I think it
06:30would have a measurable effect on the price bringing it downward. Now, I think that's going to require
06:35the use of military force, and it brings with it, therefore, the risk of escalation. But if you're not
06:41prepared to take that risk, then you are ceding control of the Strait of Hormuz to the Revolutionary
06:47Guard. And they will act to open or close access to the Strait, like turning on and off a light
06:53switch. And that's just unacceptable. But as you said, there is that risk of the war once again
06:59getting escalated. We're seeing Iran now targeting U.S. bases in Jordan and Kuwait. So in Bahrain,
07:07is there a sense, therefore, that we are inevitably heading to an escalation because Iran is asserting
07:14full wartime sovereignty over the entire Strait of Hormuz? The United States is positioning itself
07:20as a guardian of the waterway. One day, Donald Trump says, I'm going to impose a 20% tariff.
07:25The next day, he does a complete U-turn. I mean, is therefore, given these contrarian positions,
07:33an escalation of the conflict, once again inevitable? Well, let me deal with the Trump
07:39point first. This is a good example of how Trump doesn't think beyond 24 hours. That's a long time
07:45horizon for him. His 20% toll on the value of cargoes coming out lasted less than 24 hours. And
07:54when he,
07:55as you say, completely reversed himself. And it was totally contradictory to what our position has been
08:00and should be, which is that commerce should have a right of innocent passage through an international
08:05waterway like the Strait of Hormuz. If the regime really does escalate to the point of, once again,
08:13targeting civilian infrastructure in the Gulf Arab states and other countries, to me, this is simply
08:20one more piece of evidence that the regime is determined to remain in power, no matter what the
08:26cost to the Iranian people. Ultimately, you're never going to get peace and security in the Middle
08:31East with the regime still in power in Tehran. And it would reinforce what I think is the inevitable
08:37conclusion that regime change is necessary. Now, whether that's going to be satisfactory to Trump
08:43as the days dwindled before our November election, I can't say. I think he's in, personally, I think he's in
08:50a
08:50near panic himself that he's tried all these different things. He sends crazy tweets to the
08:56Iranian regime, open the straits, you crazy blank, blank, blank, and they don't do it. He can't deal
09:02with what's happening. And it will make him more frustrated and more erratic unless we can force the
09:08strait open militarily. I think that's possible because I don't think the Iranians have put many
09:13mines in the strait. I think we can suppress their speed boats and their drone attacks on commercial
09:19vehicles. And we don't have to get full traffic out. We just need to get something coming close
09:26to it to have the the requisite effect on the price of oil. You know, it's interesting, you know,
09:31you keep reiterating your belief that the regime change in Iran is the only way out. I look at a
09:36tweet that you put out since the revolution. There's no evidence whatsoever for strategic decision
09:41by the Iranian regime to abandon a nuclear weapons program. Regime change is critical to terminate the
09:47nuclear threat and end Iran status as the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Now, there will
09:52be those who will say that here is John Bolton advocating regime change, which is a violation of
09:58all international laws. And that's the problem. Iran is a sovereign nation, Ambassador Bolton.
10:03America cannot decide for Iran what kind of regime they have. And the Iranians, therefore,
10:07are only going to consolidate their ranks behind the IRGC. The more Donald Trump or the more,
10:13dare I say, voices from America, want the regime out?
10:18Well, I think the regime is overwhelmingly unpopular inside Iran. I think the regime's concern
10:25was demonstrated in January, where they massacred, machine gunned in the streets over 40,000 of their
10:32own citizens. And I think we do have a right under international law, the right of self-defense against
10:37a regime that threatens us, that has threatened the lives of President Trump and many of his officials,
10:45myself included, which has carried out terrorist attacks against American civilian and military
10:51facilities in the Middle East and elsewhere. This regime is a threat to peace and security of the Gulf
10:57Arabs and Israel, without a doubt. So I think we're fully justified. And by the way, the regime's
11:03claims of control over the Strait of Hormuz also violate international law.
11:08So, you know, we can talk about...
11:10No, you know, it's an American violation of international law. Many will say the blockade
11:14itself also, the American blockade is a violation of international law. You will say the manner in
11:20which Iran wants to control the Strait of Hormuz is a violation of international law. I come back to
11:24the question at the end game. I think in India, we are all anxious about the end game because whatever
11:30is happening in West Asia is affecting global geoeconomics as well as geopolitics. So I ask you
11:37in conclusion, what is the end game if there is any?
11:41The only way to end the uncertainty, the confusion, the risk to the international economy, the risk to
11:47peace and security in the Middle East is to get rid of the regime in Tehran.
11:52We lived for decades with the Shah of Iran and a relatively peaceful Gulf region. I don't know
12:00what the next government in Iran would look like. But I tell you, while this government is still in
12:04power, you will have nothing but threats, dangers and risks. But the fact is, if I may just push you,
12:10that involves possibly land operations, that possibly involves an even wider military conflict. Is that
12:17something you believe Donald Trump should take a risk at this moment?
12:21Well, I don't think there's any chance, at least as I read Trump, he's going to put boots on the
12:25ground. But that simply... So how are you going to effect a regime change? I mean, the question,
12:32Ambassador Bolton, is that is there no other way out? Are you saying that this entire idea of
12:37negotiations should be thrown out of the window?
12:40Sure. I wouldn't trust the Iranian negotiators as far as I could throw them. I just come back to
12:45the point I made near the beginning. To achieve regime change, you're not going to do it by air
12:50power alone, but you can do it by mobilizing and making the people of Iran more effective. There's
12:56enormous discontent with this government because of the economic situation in the country, which is
13:01desperate. The young people know they could have a different kind of life. They can see it across the
13:06Gulf. The women, ever since the murder of Masi Amini three years ago, are in near total revolt
13:14against the clerics running the government. And ethnic groups around the country, Kurds, Azeris,
13:21Baluchis, others are massively dissatisfied. This government is not popular, except for those who
13:27work for it. And if we had done a better job, which we still could, of mobilizing all of that
13:33opposition,
13:33that regime can come down. There's never been an authoritarian regime ultimately that could survive
13:39the kind of opposition that I think currently exists inside Iran against the government. We just
13:46need to help it. But maybe I can push you. Maybe the Americans have got the Iranians badly wrong.
13:52Iran is certainly not Venezuela. Iran is a strong country, more than 90 million people. It's got a very
13:57strong military and the Americans have got it wrong. If I were to suggest that between February 28th and
14:03now, at the end of the day, the Americans simply perhaps misread Iran's resilience. How would you
14:10respond to that? And thereby now, the world is being pushed, as I say, into this weaponization of
14:15uncertainty because Donald Trump got it horribly wrong from day one.
14:20Well, let's come back to the people first, then the resilience question. The fact that the government
14:25unleashed the besieged militia, and my understanding is Shiite militia imported from Iraq to help out
14:33against its own people, shows just what the level of dissatisfaction is. People are intimidated until
14:39they can be given effective ways of resisting. And what resilience there is, is the Revolutionary
14:46Guard has spent 47 years digging itself into power. And we may be finding that they've learned a lot
14:56from their friends in North Korea about how to hide much of their capability under mountains. Now that
15:02we've learned that, that's fine. Now we know how to destroy it even better. That's why eliminating the
15:07instruments of Iranian state power, like the Revolutionary Guard, helps lay the basis for the
15:13people of Iran to pull the government apart at the top, get defections from the regular military,
15:18not the Revolutionary Guard, but the regular military, and bring this regime down.
15:24Well, you know, let me push you again one last time. If I were to ask you a month from
15:29now,
15:29do you believe that this conflict's arc of this conflict would widen once again? Or do you believe
15:35that there will be an attempt made at a negotiated settlement given that the stakes are so high on
15:41both sides? I don't know. Do you like rolling dice? Because with Donald Trump president, that's
15:47basically what we're doing. I have no idea what he's going to do in the next 30 days. That's part
15:51of the
15:51problem. The Gulf Arabs and others don't have faith in American resolve because they see Trump is unable to
15:58stay on a predictable course of action for any sustained period. If he would settle down and understand that
16:05regime change should be the objective, but it's not easy to achieve. You don't do it by snapping your
16:10fingers. It takes work and takes time. I would feel much better. I don't have confidence. That's what
16:16he's about to do. Okay. I'm going to leave it there, Ambassador Bolton. Good to have you on the show,
16:22taking all our questions. Thanks very much for joining me here on India Today.
16:27Well, thanks for having me.
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