Israeli Ex-Defense Minister Says Trump’s New NSC Adviser Bolton Was Pushing Him to Strike Iran

• Israeli Ex-Defense Minister Says Trump’s New NSC Adviser Bolton Was Pushing Him to Strike Iran
  by https://www.rt.com/
  The newly appointed US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, tried to persuade Israel to conduct a pre-emptive strike against Iran before it achieved nuclear weapons capability, Israel’s ex-Defense Minister has revealed.
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  “I got to know John Bolton when he was the US ambassador to the United Nations,” Shaul Mofaz said at a conference of former IDF chiefs. “He tried to convince me that Israel should attack Iran.”
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  Mofaz, an Iranian-born Israeli who served as the defense minister at the time when Bolton headed the US mission at the UN, in turn advised the ultra-hawkish Republican against attacking Tehran. The former defense chief explained that he did not believe that a military strike on Iran would be a “wise” decision, for either Tel Aviv or Washington DC.
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  Bolton, an Iraq war apologist and an advocate of ‘military options’ in many other conflicts, is set to replace outgoing National Security Adviser Gen. HR McMaster on April 9, just days after CIA chief Mike Pompeo will supplant Rex Tillerson as head of US State Department. With these new key foreign policy leaders in place at the helm of the Trump administration, many politicians on Capitol Hill have raised concerns that Trump would be fully ready for war.
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  Trump announced Bolton’s appointment last Thursday, amid rising tensions between Tehran and Washington DC over the future of the 2015 nuclear agreement signed between P5+1 and the Islamic Republic. Unlike his predecessor Tillerson, Pompeo seems better aligned with Trump’s confrontational foreign policy when it comes to Iran. Bolton, for his part, looks like a perfect fit to pursue Trump’s maximum pressure agenda.
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  During the early months of the Trump administration, Bolton was approached by former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon to outline his plans to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, known as a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The five-page memo, which allegedly never made it to Trump’s desk, was published in National Review after Bannon departed the White House. In short, Bolton outlined a strategic public relations campaign to convince the world that the US has a justified case for pulling out of the deal.
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