DAR AL HARB / ISLAM - U.S.A. / IRAN: THE U.S. OF A. SHOULD SEEK 'REGIME CHANGE' IN IRAN, SAYS BOLTON

Bolton Says U.S. Should Seek `Regime Change' in Iran
By Janine Zacharia and Bill Varner

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- John Bolton, the former American envoy to the United Nations, said the U.S. should pursue ``regime change'' in Iran because European governments refuse to back sanctions tough enough to halt the suspected Iranian nuclear-bomb program.

``I believe that either regime change in Iran or, as a last resort, military action is the only thing that will stop the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons,'' Bolton said in an interview today in Washington.

Bolton, a 58-year-old former arms-control official, said the Bush administration had allowed Britain, France and Germany to ``screw around'' in nuclear talks. The diplomacy has gone on for ``three and a half years, and that allowed the Iranians to make enormous progress on their nuclear-weapons program,'' he said.

President George W. Bush, who labeled Iran and North Korea part of an ``axis of evil'' in 2002, has said their nuclear programs could pose a direct threat to the U.S., and that either nation might hand over atomic weapons to terrorists. The U.S. has pursued negotiated settlements with both countries while crafting UN sanctions aimed at cutting off nuclear trade with them.
Bolton left the UN in December after failing to win congressional support to extend his tenure.

He has emerged as a gadfly, criticizing the administration for its strategy on nuclear proliferation. He assailed Bush and his diplomats on Iran and for a deal with North Korea to trade energy aid for the closing of nuclear-arms-related facilities. Bolton said that accord is doomed to fail because of North Korea's record of cheating on similar arrangements.

`Fruitless' Effort

Broadly, Bolton said any negotiation with either North Korea or Iran to persuade them to abandon their nuclear ambitions won't work. ``Unless you're prepared to believe that the Iranians are voluntarily going to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons, the idea of pursuing negotiations is ultimately going to be fruitless,'' Bolton said.

Those criticisms were brushed aside by a spokesman for Bush's National Security Council. ``He is a private citizen, welcome to his own views,'' said the NSC's Gordon Johndroe. ``We're pursuing diplomacy.''

Iranian officials have countered that diplomatic pressure by insisting the nuclear push is for commercial power generation, not weapons.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pronounced ah-ma- deen-ah-ZHAD, on Feb. 25 compared Iran's nuclear development to an unstoppable train and said there would be no turning back. Iran ``threw away a while ago the reverse gear and brakes of this train,'' he said, in remarks carried by the state-run Iranian Students News Agency.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Bolton Says U.S. Should Seek `Regime Change' in Iran