I want to bring in the former
United States ambassador
to the United Nations, John Bolt
He was also President Trump's
national security adviser.
As you know, Ambassador, Israel'
ambassador is calling for the U.
Security Council
to immediately convene
following these attacks.
What's your
assessment of what's going on ri
Well, nothing is going to happen
in the Security Council, that's
I mean, what we had tonight
was a massive failure of Israeli
and American deterrence, massive
a 200 ballistic missile cruise m
drone failure.
And I think notwithstanding that
there appears to be very little
Fingers crossed
until we get the final assessmen
And thank God if the death toll
is low or nonexistent.
And while we're at it, let's tha
W Bush
for getting out of the ABM
Treaty of 1972,
unleashing the American missile
defense capability.
But but once we see what the dam
I think it's incumbent on Israel
and the United States
to reestablish deterrence in a m
And I think that means, by defin
Israel's response
and there should be a response
should not be proportionate.
It should be far stronger, becau
when deterrence fails to reestab
you have to teach the adversary
that any gain
they may help to get by any futu
attack will be more than outweig
by the damage that will be cause
So I hope President Biden isn't.
Well,
I was just sorry for interruptin
but give us your assessment
of an appropriate Israeli respon
to what Iran has now done.
Well, what what is what
Iran did tonight,
I think was was most significant
was the firing of ballistic
missiles and cruise missiles
from its territory directly in I
Almost certainly at this point,
none of those missiles
contained a nuclear warhead.
But you never can tell
when the next firing, the next s
of ballistic missiles
might contain a nuclear warhead.
So I think among the many target
Israel should consider,
this is the opportunity to destr
Iran's nuclear weapons program.
And I hope President Biden
is not trying to dissuade
Prime Minister Netanyahu from do
And if he succeeds
and if at some future point,
the ayatollahs
are able to pull off what former
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
called a nuclear holocaust
history, we'll know who to blame
So just to be precise, Ambassado
you're recommending that Israel
an air strike
to try to destroy whatever
nuclear capabilities
the Iranians might have?
Is that what I'm hearing?
Right.
I think they should go
after the nuclear fuel cycle act
that are well known.
Their locations are well known.
And I think that would be
the appropriate target,
because right now, Iran has demo
it is not restrained by any conc
about a direct attack on Israeli
territory from its attack.
It has, by its own
admission, fired
ballistic and cruise missiles.
And the only
the only thing that has saved Is
is this amazing technology.
Next time,
if the attacks come
from a different location
containing nuclear warheads,
Israel might not be so lucky.
This is not time to play academi
and message and signal.
This is a question of power.
People say they're concerned
about a wider war.
The wider war began on October
the seventh.
That was not an Israeli war
against Arabs or Palestinians or
And it was Iran's attack on Isra
using the ring of fire strategy.
That's the strategic environment
Israel faces right now.
And the main cause, the puppetee
the puppet master, is Iran.
And if you take away
their nuclear capability,
that would be
a dramatic hit to the regime,
may be enough to topple it.
Ambassador, my colleague
Jim Shadow is here with me in Wa
He has a question
as a follow up question for you.
Go ahead, Jim.
Ambassador Bolton,
given and you know as well as we
Hezbollah and its enormous missi
arsenal, many thousands of rocke
and missiles,
is intended in part by Iran
to be a pressure point.
If Israel were to strike
Iranian nuclear facilities,
and I wonder, given the size of
an order of magnitude
bigger than it was, say,
during the 2006 war,
whether you believe
Israel can today fight
what would be a multi-front war,
in the south,
Hezbollah in the north, Iran
to to the east.
And if you would then envision
the US directly involved
in such a conflict?
Well, I think
for the
foreseeable future,
Gaza is not going to be
a principal battlefield,
and it's certainly not
something that's going to engage
full Israeli military power.
I think Hezbollah put pressure o
It's one reason why
the Iranian counter strike
took almost two weeks
after the Damascus strike
by Israel
to say
you need to put skin in this gam
So I'm not at all
sure what Hezbollah's response w
to Israel
taking out a nuclear power
that hasn't done a thing for Hez
The Israelis clearly have though
about what to do to neutralize H
Perhaps their response,
which also would be a pretty big
for Iran, would be to go after H
Now, my point is
there are a number of steps
Israel can take.
Passivity at this point for Isra
would be a big mistake.
I mean, I think from the Israeli
point of view,
they should remember
what Winston Churchill said in W
War Two.
Without victory, there is no sur
How close is Iran
to actually having a nuclear bom
Well, I think about 72 hours
that they can get
if they send
a wire transfer to the central B
of North Korea in Pyongyang
and give the North Koreans enoug
time to put a couple of warheads
on an airplane and fly them to T
You know, there's a lot of talk
about how close
Iran is compared to how close
they were four or five years ago
or before
the Trump administration
pulled out of the nuclear deal.
All of which assumes perfect kno
of Iran's nuclear weapons progra
I think we should have enough
experience with faulty intellige
by now
not to be so sure not to know
how much of Iran's uranium
enrichment
program is really being conducte
under a mountain in North Korea.
The fact is, they're very close.
The fact is, the
the nuclear deal of 2015
was flawed from the start
by allowing Iran any uranium
enrichment capability, whatever.
Ambassador Bolton, thank
you so much for joining us.
We'll
continue this conversation down
Glad to be with you.