{"id":42800,"date":"2019-01-15T18:54:45","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T23:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42800"},"modified":"2019-01-15T18:54:45","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T23:54:45","slug":"is-bolton-steering-trump-into-war-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42800","title":{"rendered":"Is Bolton Steering Trump into War with Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Is<\/a><\/p>\n

Is Bolton Steering Trump into War with Iran?<\/a><\/h3>\n

\u201cStop the ENDLESS WARS!\u201d implored President Donald Trump in a Sunday night tweet.<\/p>\n

Well, if he is serious, Trump had best keep an eye on his national security adviser, for a U.S. war on Iran would be a dream come true for John Bolton.<\/p>\n

Last September, when Shiite militants launched three mortar shells into the Green Zone in Baghdad, which exploded harmlessly in a vacant lot, Bolton called a series of emergency meetings and directed the Pentagon to prepare a menu of targets, inside Iran, for U.S. air and missile strikes in retaliation.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal quoted one U.S. official as saying Bolton\u2019s behavior \u201crattled people. \u2026 People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolton\u2019s former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the Green Zone was \u201can act of war\u201d to which the U.S. must respond decisively.<\/p>\n

Bolton has long believed a U.S. confrontation with Iran is both inevitable and desirable. In 2015, he authored a New York Times op-ed whose title, \u201cTo Stop Iran\u2019s Bomb, Bomb Iran,\u201d said it all. He has urged that \u201cregime change\u201d in Iran be made a declared goal of U.S. foreign policy.<\/p>\n

When Trump announced his decision to withdraw the 2,000 U.S. troops now in Syria, Bolton swiftly imposed conditions: ISIS must first be eliminated, Iranian forces and allied militias must leave, and the Kurds must be protected.<\/p>\n

Yet enforcing such red lines would require a permanent presence of American troops. For how, without war, would we effect the removal of Bashar Assad\u2019s Iranian allies, if he declines to expel them and the Iranians refuse to go?<\/p>\n

Bolton has an ally in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In Cairo last week, Pompeo declared it U.S. policy \u201cto expel every last Iranian boot\u201d from Syria.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Bolton Steering Trump into War with Iran? \u201cStop the ENDLESS WARS!\u201d implored President Donald Trump in a Sunday night tweet. Well, if he is serious, Trump had best keep an eye on his national security adviser, for a U.S. war on Iran would be a dream come true for John Bolton. Last September, when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7844,441,4487,14065,827,862],"class_list":["post-42800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-john-bolton","tag-patrick-j-buchanan","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42801,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42800\/revisions\/42801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}