Former national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday warned that President Trump’s actions in the war against Iran could spark a nuclear arms race.
“Whatever deal President Trump makes with Iran, his often-contradictory decisions during the conflict have laid the groundwork for more nuclear proliferation in the Middle East,” Bolton said in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal that was published Sunday.
“If the race for nuclear weapons widens and accelerates, the region will become more unstable, heightening risks for the entire world,” he added, in his piece titled “A Bad Iran Deal Could Spark a Nuclear Arms Race.”
The war in Iran, which has strained relations with U.S. allies and stressed the global economy, recently passed the three-month mark, with recent polling finding many Americans are against the fighting.
In a recent interview, Trump said Iran had not agreed to end the war because they were “strong” and “proud,” but stated that they had “no choice” but to come to a deal.
“They’re strong, they’re proud, there are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do,” Trump said Friday during an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker.
Trump has pushed back against the rush to come to a long-term deal with Iran on its nuclear programs and control over the Strait of Hormuz.
On Sunday, Iran fired missiles at Israel — an incident Trump has been briefed about, a U.S. official told The Hill’s broadcast partner NewsNation.
In his opinion piece, Bolton claimed that “Mr. Trump and Iran’s internal opposition must remove or gravely weaken the principal threat to regional peace: Tehran’s regime.”
“But Gulf Arab states and others believe Washington, hitherto their chief guarantor of security and deterrence, is in shaky hands. Accordingly, they are revising their strategies to survive in a dangerous neighborhood, amid Iran’s nuclear and terrorist threats,” he added.
“If America’s conventional deterrent is deemed unreliable, fears about the extended nuclear deterrent are even greater. Gulf Arabs and other regional states have long contemplated whether to acquire nuclear capabilities to hedge against a fickle Washington,” Bolton wrote later.
