By Jesus Mesa
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Ten days into the U.S.-Israeli air campaign against Iran, one of the longest-standing advocates for regime change in Tehran is getting exactly what he asked for.
But that doesn't mean he likes what he is seeing.
Ambassador John Bolton, who served as national security advisor during the first Donald Trump administration before a high-profile falling out with the president, told Newsweek’s Carlo Versano on Monday's episode of The 1600 that while the military might be winning on the battlefield, the White House is losing the political war at home.
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"I'm not happy with the way Trump's going about it," he said.
Watch Here: The 1600 Podcast Full Episode
Bolton, a veteran of four Republican administrations who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, argued Trump launched the war without preparing the public, without building congressional support and without coordinating with allies. The polls reflect it: the war is running 10 to 18 points underwater in most surveys.
"Trump would have been very well advised to prepare the public with this very powerful case in advance of actually attacking," Bolton said on The 1600 podcast. "That's what people normally do — maybe with an address from the Oval Office sitting behind the Resolute Desk at 9 p.m. My fellow Americans, I have something serious to talk to you about. Trump hasn't done that."
His biggest concern is the Iranian opposition. Bolton said the regime has never been weaker — economically, politically, demographically — and that coordinating with internal dissidents and potential Army defectors could still convert military pressure into collapse. That work, he said, was not done.
"The most important thing I'm worried he hasn't done is coordinate effectively with the Iranian opposition, who will carry a major part of the burden inside Iran in actually overthrowing the regime.”
‘Trump Doesn't Do Grand Strategy’
Bolton also said he isn't sure Trump understands what regime change actually requires. Unlike the war in Iraq, where he believes the military operation to remove Saddam Hussein succeeded even if the result was a quagmire, Bolton sees Trump making critical political mistakes before the "shooting has even stopped."
"He has this idea of what he calls the Venezuela model. But Venezuela isn't Iran. And by the way, Venezuela isn't Venezuela either — he has not accomplished regime change there."
Bolton said the right approach is fracturing Iran's Revolutionary Guard from the regular Army and giving figures inside the regime a reason to defect.
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"It's not at all clear to me that Trump is thinking about that. He doesn't do grand strategy. He doesn't even do policy the way we normally understand it."
On why the second term has been more hawkish than the first, Bolton pointed to one change: no one tells Trump 'no' anymore.
"The difference is that in this term, his top advisors say 'yes, sir' as soon as he says something. Whereas in the first term they would say: but Mr. President, have you thought of A, B, and C? People are afraid to say those things in the second term."
Netanyahu and the Scapegoats
Asked whether the U.S. is fighting Israel's war, Bolton said he does not believe Trump was not maneuvered into this by Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Trump resisted exactly these kinds of arguments in the first term. It's not like Netanyahu snuck one by him one day. Trump decided he wanted to do it."
But he added a warning: "If things go south, I will absolutely guarantee you Trump will blame it on Netanyahu. In Trump's world of winners and losers, he's a winner. And therefore, if this action against Iran turns out to be a loser, it's somebody else's fault. That is coming."
He also said Trump's early public call for Iranians to rise up was evidence the internal groundwork was never laid.
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"That was a piece of evidence that the preliminary work had not been done. If he knew and understood what had to be done, he wouldn't have said that."
On the defense secretary's briefings, where Pete Hegseth has described the campaign in triumphant terms with seven Americans already dead, Bolton was brief.
"The only person to listen to in these briefings is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Kaine. Not the way Hegseth is performing. It's juvenile."
Bolton, who is currently under indictment by Trump's DOJ for allegedly mishandling classified information, was asked how he can support a war being waged by the same administration that is prosecuting him, while also acknowledging that the Biden administration indicted a member of the Revolutionary Guard for trying to assassinate Bolton due to his support for regime change in that country.
"The only question is who gets me first, the Iranians or Trump," Bolton said.
Watch the full conversation between John Bolton with Carlo Versano in the video player above or on YouTube.
Subscribe to The 1600 newsletter for more interviews and to receive Carlo's popular daily column. Tap here to have it delivered straight to your inbox.
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