U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton on Sunday rejected accusations by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that he and a small cabal of Mideast hawks were pushing President Trump into a conflict with Iran. He also joked that he was having \u201ca pretty good week\u201d after verbal attacks by the regimes in Tehran, Pyongyang and Havana.
\nBolton was speaking on Fox News Sunday about Zarif\u2019s claim, made on the program and in several other appearances in recent days, that Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed, were goading Trump to war. (Zarif dubbed the four the \u201cB team,\u201d based on the letter \u201cb\u201d in their names.)
\n\u201cForeign Minister Zarif says you\u2019re part of the \u2018B team,\u2019\u201d said host Chris Wallace. \u201cA small group of leaders \u2013 you in the U.S., others in the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu, Bin Salman, Bin Zayed \u2013 who are working to try to steer President Trump into a conflict with Iran. Your response?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, he also said in another interview he wished he were working with the \u2018A team,\u2019\u201d began Bolton with a smile. \u201cYou know, in the past few days the North Koreans have also called me \u2018dim-sighted,\u2019 the Cubans have said I\u2019m a \u2018pathological liar.\u2019 I\u2019d say I\u2019ve had a pretty good week.\u201d
\n(North Korea\u2019s foreign minister last weekend called Bolton \u201cdim-sighted\u201d for saying in an interview Pyongyang needs to give a \u201creal indication\u201d of its readiness to give up nuclear weapons before Trump will meet with Kim Jong Un for a third summit. Days later Cuba\u2019s foreign minister described Bolton as a \u201cpathological liar\u201d over allegations of Cuban troops propping up Venezuela\u2019s Maduro regime.)
\nBolton disputed that he was fomenting a conflict with the Iranian regime, saying the president\u2019s policy on Iran, one of \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d to compel a change of behavior, had been clear well before he joined the administration a year ago.
\nIn his interview with Wallace, Zarif accused Bolton and the others of having \u201cshown an interest in dragging the United States into a conflict,\u201d and said he does not believe that is what Trump wants, having run \u201con a campaign promise of not bringing the United States into another war.\u201d
\nBolton described Zarif\u2019s interview as a \u201ccarefully-prepared propaganda script\u201d designed to \u201csow disinformation into the American body politic.\u201d
\nZarif also brought up Bolton\u2019s past associations with the exiled Iranian opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)\/Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK).<\/p>\n
The group was a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization until delisted by the Obama State Department in 2012, citing its renunciation of violence and \u201cthe absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade.\u201d It counts some high-profile Republican and Democratic figures among its supporters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Zarif said Bolton had told the group at a rally \u201cthat he would celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, in Tehran with that terrorist organization.\u201d
\n(At an NCRI rally in Paris in 2017, Bolton said it should be U.S. policy to ensure that the regime in Tehran does \u201cnot last until its 40th birthday\u201d \u2013 that is, 2019.)
\nZarif said Bolton had made the same comment since becoming national security advisor.
\nIn fact, since taking up the post, Bolton has stressed repeatedly that \u201cregime change\u201d in Iran is not this administration\u2019s policy.
\n\u201cYou know who took the MEK off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations?\u201d Bolton said, when asked by Wallace about Zarif\u2019s remarks. \u201cHillary Clinton, that well-known right-wing Republican.\u201d
\n\u201cDon\u2019t you want to see regime change?\u201d Wallace pressed. \u201cIsn\u2019t that the only way to get an Iran that isn\u2019t a threat to the neighborhood?\u201d
\nBolton replied that the Iranian people \u201cdeserve a better government, there\u2019s absolutely no doubt about it.\u201d
\n\u201cThe trouble is, it\u2019s not just a theological dictatorship, it\u2019s a military dictatorship too,\u201d he continued. \u201cThat\u2019s a very difficult circumstance. We\u2019ll see what happens as the economic pressure continues to grow.\u201d<\/p>\nCNS News, By Patrick <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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