GOP hawk denounces Iran talks, calls for military action

Republican hawk John Bolton has denounced the nuclear talks underway between Iran and the P5+1 countries, calling on the United States to immediately launch a military offensive against the Islamic Republic to damage its nuclear infrastructure.

Bolton, who was US ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration, made the remarks in an article published by the New York Times on Thursday.

“The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program,” the neoconservative diplomat wrote. “Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure.”

“The inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel’s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed,” he added.

Bolton wrote that a US attack probably will not destroy Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure, “but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years.”

Bolton’s article comes at a time when officials from Iran and the P5+1 –  the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany – are engaged in intense negotiations to work out a comprehensive agreement aimed at ending the longstanding dispute over the Islamic Republic’s civilian nuclear work as a July 1 deadline approaches.

Israel, and some members of the US Republican Party accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its civilian nuclear program.

Washington and its allies have imposed illegal sanctions on Iran based on the unfounded accusation that Tehran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the AEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

Israel is widely believed to be the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East with more than 200 undeclared nuclear warheads.

Tel Aviv has rejected global calls to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and does not allow international inspectors to observe its controversial nuclear program.

In his article, Bolton defended Israel’s nuclear weapons program, saying it has not “triggered an arms race” in the Middle East. “Other states in the region understood — even if they couldn’t admit it publicly — that Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.”

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