Bolton: Trump was ready to support Israeli attack on Iran

Trump told Bolton that he’d support Netanyahu if he chose to strike Iran, according to the former national security adviser in his new book.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

President Donald Trump said he’d back an Israeli strike on Iran, says former National Security Adviser John Bolton in his upcoming book The Room Where it Happened, reports The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

“On Iran, I urged that he press ahead to withdraw from the nuclear agreement and explained why the use of force against Iran’s nuclear program might be the only lasting solution.” Bolton writes, in excerpts made public prior to the book’s release.

Bolton didn’t bring up Israel’s use of force, but Trump did, saying he’d support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he chose to do so.

“You tell Bibi [Netanyahu] that if he uses force, I will back him. I told him that, but you tell him again,” Trump told Bolton.

Bolton’s book, due to be released this week, has aroused ire in the Trump administration, which has unsuccessfully attempted to block its publication. The president has accused Bolton of releasing classified information in the book and could face criminal charges.

The book is widely expected to be unflattering. Earlier excerpts accused Trump of regularly giving “personal favors to dictators he liked” and begged Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win reelection by buying large amounts of U.S. agriculture goods.

In a June 12 press release, the book’s publisher Simon & Schuster said, “What Bolton saw astonished him: a president for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation.”

“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations,” Bolton writes, according to the publisher.

Bolton served as national security adviser from April 2018 to Sept. 2019.