Bolton: Gaza Crisis Means We Should Attack Iran Now (with video)
Yesterday, on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, Iran war hawk John Bolton said that Israel’s recent bombing campaign in Gaza is all the more reason for the United States to bomb Iran now. “So while our focus obviously is on Gaza right now, this could turn out to be a much larger conflict,” he said, adding that “we’re looking at potentially a multi-front war here.”
“You would strike Iran right now?” asked host Alan Colmes. “I would have done it before this,” Bolton responded. Colmes asked whether tensions and war across Middle East would escalate if the U.S. or Israel were to bomb Iran. Bolton said that the many Arab countries would secretly be cheering if Iran were attacked:
COLMES: So if we do that, they strike back, are we then in danger of creating a broader war?
BOLTON: I think in many Arab states in the region, although they wouldn’t say it publicly, they’d be doing the equivalent of popping champagne corks because the Arab states don’t want Iran with nuclear weapons any more than Israel does. What Iran could do is what’s already happening in the Gaza Strip or what might happen if they unleashed Hezbollah, terrorist attacks on Israel.
Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/30/bolton-iran-israel/
It’s hard to believe that the Arab world would be pulling out the party hats if Iran were attacked. Thanks to the policies of President Bush, the U.S is immensely unpopular across the Middle East. Iran, on the other hand, enjoys unprecedented support in Iraq, which is supposed to be America’s greatest ally in the region.
The LA Times reported last year that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “has transcended national and religious divides to become a folk hero across the Middle East.” Ahmadinejaded, “the leader of a non-Arab Shiite nation, has ingratiated himself with the Middle East’s predominantly Sunni Arab population.”
Without regard for the wider war and increased regional instability that an attack on Iran would likely cause, Bolton believes the solution to a Middle East already in flames is to throw more wood on the fire.