I'm beginning to suspect that John Bolton, more than anything else, is simply a very, very dumb person. His only discernible world-view is "intervene, preferably with guns". (His
relatively scant military experience makes this interesting to me, but that's beside the point). But more than that, his actual policy initiatives contradict each other in pretty blatant ways. My knowledge of the Korean and Venezuela issues are pretty limited, but his middle east strategies are baffling.
I get the sense that his overarching intent is to have an American-friendly government in the second largest middle-eastern country (Iran). He has not been subtle about his support for the People's Mujahedin of Iran (one of those Socialist-Islamist groups America has so much in common with, so much so in fact, the US designated them a terrorist organization until 2012) and generally the idea of regime change through whatever means is most expedient. He's also a fierce advocate of "containment" with regards to Iranian adventurism. None of these are particularly unique to general conservative world views, with regards to Iran.
Buuuut here's the thing. The #1 obstacle to Iran's expansionism at the turn of the millennium was the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein who had already proven capable of going toe to toe with Iran in a expansive military conflict in the 1980s. Bolton unquestionably played a big role in overthrowing Saddam. What did he expect would happen? That Iran, massive compared to Iraq in terms of economy, population, and size, would not exert influence on Iraq? What we have now is, at best for the US, a compromise government in Iraq that is far more friendly to Iran than Saddam ever was.
And then there is the whole ISIS fight within Syria and Iraq. While you can't say that Bolton had anything to do with Obama's strategy in Syria, he didn't exactly go out of his way to take on a more direct and forceful role in eliminating ISIS. The Trump administration has largely let Iran and Russia run the show, which means that Iran has greatly expanded it's influence to nearly the Mediterranean Sea.
Since 2000, despite debilitating sanctions, Iran has expanded its territory of influence by something like 100%.
But what is even more baffling than all of that is what the Trump administration, and particularly Bolton, has done to the sentiment of the Iranian population. We all hear the "death to America" and flag burning and such, but Iranians (at least the sizeable middle & upper classes) prior to Trump have been generally fine with America. But the Trump administration has actually started to turn the population of Iran further against the US, which makes regime change start to look pretty laughable. Who do you think they would elect if the current government (A representative Republic with generally free elections, I might add) was removed? Probably the same people. Maybe the US would try to install a pro-western authoritarian? Probably
not a good idea, really. Also, try invading a country of 80 million people, who could easily be issued small arms,
who don't want you there, it would be like Russia trying to invade Texas, except with nearly three times as many people. Iraq and Afghanistan would look like cakewalks in comparison.
To me, it all adds up to a very basic, fundamental lack of a long term strategy. I think Bolton is just a dumb, and dangerously dumb person.
Obama's strategy was probably a bit naive and didn't fully address the militarism of the IRGC. IMO, the agreement should have been primarily about reducing Iranian adventurism and less about the less important nuclear development (NK seems far less stable than Iran, and they have Nukes, and they haven't Nuked anyone. Pakistan and India both have nukes, and they pretty much hate each other, and they haven't gone nuclear). It would have probably been more effective in containing the expansionism and more palatable to most Iranians. But Obama's strategy seemed to actually have a
long term goal: to gradually (gradual tends to stick) pushing Iran to a more moderate place and bringing them into the fold of the international community. This involved trust on both sides, and both sides seemed to be moving forward in mostly good faith. Ironically, Trump seems to naturally follow this diplomatic track, when not under the influence of hawks. I don't understand why he has been so aggressive towards Iran, other than the fact that it is a majority Muslim country. Is it to simplistic to say that he simply deeply dislikes Muslims as a whole? Or is merely an attempt to undo a Obama signature policy? Trump's hatred of Obama still mystifies me. Whatever the case, the amount of progress that has been undone is hard to overstate. Iranians now do not trust America, we have lost a significant amount of integrity, and integrity was possibly America's greatest asset.
