John Bolton

Bolton: I'm 'very worried' for Israel
By DAVID HOROVITZ

Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.



http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182409649665&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


Why is this guy worried about Israel? He should be more concerned about our own interests.

Bolton is basically worshiped by most of the aipac crowd.

The following comes from a taped conversation of a conference call (recorded by an aipacee, and then posted online, before aipac requested it be removed)

http://www.stopaipac.org/boltontape.htm

Former Ambassador Bolton:
Let me turn now to the question of Iran and what I think the situation is there. The Security Council just passed a resolution. The resolution that the Security Council passed at the end of last month imposing certain limited sanctions on Iran, obviously the product of a long effort based on Iran’s refusal to comply with the earlier Security Council resolution that gave them until August 31st to cease their uranium enrichment activities. I’d have to say because I’m a private citizen and therefore a free man again, and these are my personal views, now, that this sanctions resolution is very disappointing. It is not as tough as I would have liked to have seen it. In many respects the Russians did an outstanding job from their point of view in protecting Iran, in narrowing the scope of the sanctions, in limiting the effectiveness, I think, of many of the things that we wanted to try and do to prevent the Iranians from continuing to make progress on their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

I think the Iranian reaction to the sanctions resolution has been very telling in that respect, although they’ve passed a resolution in parliament to re-evaluate their relation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, they have not rejected the sanctions resolution, they have not done anything more dramatic, such as withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty, or throwing out inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which I actually hoped they would do – that that kind of reaction would produce a counter-reaction that actually would be more beneficial to us.

(you can even hear that portion of the conversation if you go to this page)
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btw, regarding the idea of "our interests" and Israel's "interests"... i think many people sincerely think that they are pretty much the same. It's just how they define these interests. Bolton & Olmert see their interests are served by projecting military power over their potential foes.

Many of us, in the US and Israel, see our interests defined by working within the framework of international law and diplomacy. Many of us would like to see a nuclear-free middle east, and of course a nuclear-free world. We see our interests, in fact the interests of the whole human race, served by ending the threat of nuclear war.

Not so with people like Bolton. Or Olmert or the Israeli establishment. Continuation of the status quo (and projecting US power in the Middle East) means holding on to the threat of mass destruction, so in their (warped) view US and Israel's interests are the same.

There is just no objective version of "US interests".