John Bolton predictably thinks Trump didn’t go far enough. As he sees it, the Iranian nuclear problem will never go away without regime change, which is unlikely without outside intervention due to the strength of the instruments of repression and divisions within the opposition. His solution, of course, is more war.
Bolton insists that regime change can be accomplished without boots on the ground; this wouldn’t have to be another Iraq, although he continues to argue that Iraq wasn’t so bad. My question is, how? How could you be certain that the nuclear program was gone, and that the government was completely decapitated, with just a single intense precision bombing campaign? Isn’t it virtually certain that enough of the security apparatus would survive Bolton’s bombs to keep the population under control and the nuclear threat alive? Isn’t it likely that the Iranian public would rally behind the regime, rather than overthrow it, in the face of American and Israeli aggression?
It won’t work. If you want to make the nuclear problem go away for the foreseeable future, you have three potentially viable choices: an agreement with plenty of carrots as well as sticks; a perpetual air war; or an Iraq-style invasion and occupation. That’s it. Without admitting it, Bolton is voting for #3. Trump won’t go for that, but he is now clearly willing to be Bibi’s yard guy, which is #2.