Iran Focus
London, 30 Mar – There are some people who are greatly concerned about Donald Trump’s appointment of John Bolton as his new national security advisor, including the former top Obama officials who now run the National Security Action group.
The group is chaired by Ben Rhodes, a top Obama adviser who has now admitted to creating an “echo chamber” of lies, distortions and spin to promote the Iran nuclear deal, and Jake Sullivan, who likely would have served as national security adviser in Hillary Clinton’s cabinet.
Recently, National Security Action tweeted: “John Bolton is at the nexus of Russia’s interference in our democracy and the NRA’s reckless agenda. It’s time to delve deeper into the web of connections among Bolton, Russia, and the NRA.”
To be clear, there’s no evidence that Bolton helped Russia hack the US 2016 elections. According to Seth Mandel at the New York Post, the only Bolton-Russia link is the fact that he once recorded a pro-gun rights statement for a Russian organization.
If you think it’s odd that a political group would make such tenuous links, you’d be best to look at the biggest threat Bolton poses. Like Trump himself, Bolton wants to get rid of the Iran Nuclear Deal of 2015, which is not beneficial to the security of the US and allows Iran to act malignly elsewhere (i.e. funding terrorism, human rights abuses, and regional expansionism).
So the people, like Rhodes, that helped construct the deal, want to tear Bolton down. This includes National Security Action members Joe Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, which helped fund positive media coverage of the nuclear deal, and Wendy Sherman, chief negotiator of the deal.
The attacks on Bolton are designed to save a failing deal. Indeed, Sherman even penned an op-ed for The New York Times to call Bolton a warmonger.
Her argument is that by ripping up the deal, the US will allow Iran to get nuclear weapons, but the big problem is that Iran is already working on them in secret, as we know from the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Iran is already cutting off access by inspectors to suspected nuclear sites, why do that if you have nothing to hide?
Simply put, Trump is likely to pull out of the nuclear deal at the upcoming May deadline. He has put in place a cabinet, including Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, that will allow him to do so. Trump is right to do this because Iran is not keeping to its side of the deal and never intended to.
