Name: ‘There’s a real problem here’: Bolton knocks Trump’s Iran planning
Uploaded: 2026-03-16T16:49:59.000Z
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With us now is former national security adviser in the first Trump administration, a former U.S.

ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.

Ambassador, thanks so much for being with us.

So last night, President Trump called on NATO allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

He said, quote, it's only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there.

If there's no response or if it's a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.

That was a statement that to the Financial Times.

Now, this morning, just a few minutes ago, the foreign minister of Germany said he does not see NATO assuming responsibility for reopening the straits.

So where do you think that leaves things?

Well, I think there's a real problem here.

I've been saying for the last two weeks, I think that among other mistakes, Trump made before undertaking this operation was not consulting adequately with our allies.

He also didn't prepare the American people and didn't prepare the Congress.

And I say all this as an advocate of regime change in Iran.

It's just inconceivable to me that the prospect of the Strait of Hormuz being closed wasn't part of the decision making that led up to the go ahead.

Back when I was in the White House and vigorously advocated as vigorously as I could overthrowing the regime in Tehran, closure of the Strait of Hormuz was always a subject of discussion.

But here I think not only the political groundwork wasn't laid with the allies.

I'm surprised that the military hadn't done more earlier to remove what is clearly one of Iran's most important retaliatory strike capabilities, not just its ballistic missiles, not just its drones.

But closing the Strait of Hormuz, which is what it has accomplished, what does it tell you that the president seems to be asking for help?

Now, you know, two weeks into this conflict?

Well, you know, normally you build a coalition of the willing before you go to war.

I mean, that's just a tip from somebody who's been there.

we should have gone to NATO members, not to tell them the operational details or the timing, but

to say, look, we're going to take serious action here.

You are threatened by Iran's nuclear capabilities and aspirations.

You are threatened by Iran's terrorist activities.

Now, maybe we wouldn't have gotten all of NATO.

But if we had worked the issue, it's at least possible that we would have gotten some from the outset.

And as things developed during the last two plus weeks, we could have brought them in later.

But none of that preparation was done, and we're now seeing the downside.

And I tell you, tweeting out or saying in a press release you want China to help you open the Strait is not the way to do this.

This is what quiet diplomacy may succeed at.

But you don't get it by publicly demanding that they come in.

CENTCOM sending a Marine expeditionary force, about 2500 Marines, maybe more, to the region.

What difference do you see that potentially making?

Well, there are a lot of missions that might be considered for, I believe for some time that at an appropriate time, which is not now, but

perhaps when the regime is collapsing, seizing the key nuclear sites, Fordo, Natanz, Esfahan, maybe others, could be critical to prevent enriched uranium centrifuges, other materials related to the nuclear program, from falling into the wrong hands, getting to terrorists or other rogue states.

It may be they've got something in mind for some of the islands in the Strait of Hormuz as defensive positions there.

And I think, again, this may make sense militarily, but

why didn't we do it like three weeks ago?

Ambassador, you just said before you are a firm supporter of regime change in Iran and have been for decades.

If President Trump today, tomorrow, you know, Wednesday, said, okay, we're done there, the regime has been crippled.

They've got no more missiles, no more navies, how close would that be to the regime change that you advocate for?

I think if you don't get regime change now, this military activity could be said to make the question worse.

We've now got real evidence that closing the Strait of Hormuz can cause economic pain.

And if the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard survive in power, they will go back to their nuclear, nuclear weapons program.

They will go back to increased international terrorism.

That's the whole point of regime change, that the behavior of the people running the country now is not going to vary.

Their ideology, their fanaticism drive them to do what they've been doing these past 47 years.

Now, you either live with that, which I think is unacceptable, or you get rid of them.

Does that just mean the new supreme leader, Mostar Khamenei, whether he is alive or not, I mean, obviously he put out that statement before the United States, says he's badly injured does that mean just him get rid of him or get rid of more?

I think you need to get rid of the Islamic revolution.

I think there's overwhelming opposition to the regime.

But another failure before the launch of hostilities was, as far as I can tell from the outside, almost total lack of cooperation and assistance to the opposition inside the country.

They're going to have to have a major role in causing cracks and fissures at the top of the regime and leading to its collapsing.

And it's not clear to me that we're doing much of anything with the opposition.

With us now, CNN analyst Barack Ravid from Axios and David Sanger from the New York Times.

Gentlemen, it's an honor to get to speak with both of you.

You're both doing such great reporting on this.

The latest that you are hearing because you were reporting yesterday on this call from President Trump to try to get allies on board with opening the straits.

As we can see this morning, pretty much nothing passing through that 20 mile stretch there.

Well, I think that over the weekend, the Trump administration tried to get as many countries as possible to agree to sign some sort of a political statement calling on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

So that's sort of a preliminary stage to actually sending ships or planes or any other assets to the region to make it happen.

And I think Trump is mostly talking to the Brits, to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the same person that he said just a few days ago that, you know, he was too late to help us.

But over the weekend, Trump spoke to Starmer and asked for his help.

And I think the Brits are trying to get other Western countries.

It's definitely not going to be under NATO.

But I think that inside the EU there are those who say can we maybe shift or adjust the current maritime mission that we have in the Red Sea so that it could also be used for the Strait of Hormuz.

Of course, one thing I want to point out is that we can come over, look at the wall again here is that the Iranians this morning are actually threatening the Red Sea anew.

You can see here there's no oil really getting through the Strait of Hormuz.

There has been some shipments in the Red Sea, but now the Iranians threatening that region as well.

David Sanger, you're part of the team of the New York Times, who's written just a terrific piece overnight about the difficulty in options that President Trump has right now.

I mean, how much pressure is them is there on him to this week say, you know what, we've done what we can and we're going to walk away?

Well, John, I think you've heard the president try to lay this out in public a bit, and

he's going back and forth last week between telling some of his audiences, well, should, you know, the job is just about done.

We've won already to we wouldn't want to get out too early.

The fact of the matter is the president said going into this that it was probably four to six weeks.

And White House officials tell me they still think it's four to six weeks and we're only two weeks in.

This might help explain why the president is thinking about delaying his trip to China because it would come right in the midst of the next stages.

If he leaves now, he's got a clerical government still in place run by the injured hard line son of the now dead ayatollah.

He's still got the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge.

He's diminished greatly the number of missiles and launchers that Iran has, but they still have some.

And the nuclear fuel is still sitting largely at Isfahan untouched.

And so one of the big decisions he's got to make is how he and Israel would get that fuel out of the deep underground site because they're leaving Iran now with an angry government that probably is more interested in getting at that fuel than ever before.

Yeah, we've heard nothing right now about the exact plans to take care of that fuel, David, that you, your colleagues at the New York Times are writing about.

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‘There’s a real problem here’: Bolton knocks Trump’s Iran planning

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