Bolton blasts Biden for negotiating with Iran after assassination plot

“It’s a big mistake for the administration to continue to show weakness to Iran by begging to get back in the 2015 nuclear deal,” he said

By Ben Whedon

Published: August 10, 2022 8:55pm

Updated: August 10, 2022 10:46pm

Former national security adviser John Bolton on Wednesday excoriated the Biden administration for continuing to pursue a nuclear agreement with Iran after it masterminded an assassination plot against him.

"While much cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable: Iran's rulers are liars, terrorists, and enemies of the United States," he said to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on the channel's "Situation Room." "Their radical, anti-American objectives are unchanged. Their commitments are worthless, and their global threat is growing."

“It’s a big mistake for the administration to continue to show weakness to Iran by begging to get back in the 2015 nuclear deal,” he added. "It encourages Tehran to engage in just these kinds of terrorist activities.”

The Department of Justice on Wednesday indicted Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), for plotting to kill the former U.S. official. He reportedly agreed to pay an assassin $300,000 for his death. The IRGC is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and Bolton has been a prominent advocate for hawkish policies toward Tehran.

The DOJ alleged that Poursafi planned to kill Bolton "in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qasem Soleimani."

The Biden administration has been working to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Tehran after former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, negotiated in 2015.

Bolton told Blitzer he was "embarrassed at the low price" of his assassination, before asserting that the Iranian regime could not be trusted to uphold a new nuclear arrangement.

"Frankly, from my point of view, the regime's terrorist activities are just the other side of the coin of its nuclear weapons program, and any idea this regime will adhere to its commitments on anything is just a terrible delusion," he said.