© AFP/Yuri Kadobnov; Reuters/Adam Ploessl; Reuters/US Navy/Grant G. Grady
National Security Advisor John Bolton and his wish list
Washington DC, May 14-In the 13 months since he became Pres. Trump's national security adviser, the extreme hawk John Bolton has successfully ramped up Washington's tensions with Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and to some extent also Syria. But
in the case of Iran, he may have met his match, since Iran's government has a broad network of capable allies all across the Levant and plays a non-trivial role in 21st-century geopolitics, too.
Just one month after he appointed Bolton to his role, Trump withdrew the United States from the six-party Iran denuclearization deal (also known as the JCPOA) that Pres. Obama had signed back in 2015. Trump and his people started disentangling the United States from the deal almost immediately, reimposing on Iran several layers of the tough bilateral sanctions that the deal had earlier lifted.
Last month, the administration dug deeper, announcing tough new sanctions on Iran and other sanctions, for the first time, on third-party entities-including many in Europe-that do business with Iran. Last week, it announced that the aircraft carrier the USS
Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying battle group would be redeployed from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. All these moves have been enthusiastically welcomed by (or were even, reportedly, suggested by) Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
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