Name: Bolton: Trump is 'confused' about Iran war objectives
Uploaded: 2026-03-26T16:36:13.000Z
Duration: 10 min 44 s
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President Trump's former national security adviser, Ambassador John Bolton, and thank you for being here.

Adverbs of manner

I mean, as someone who obviously used to spend a lot of time inside the situation room with the president, when you hear what he says there, do you believe it matters what the president calls this?

Well, I think he's been looking for some time for a way to get out of this.

And although it started as a regime change operation, which I think was the right objective, I think he's been nervous about the outcome for some time.

It's not unusual for presidents to try and disguise what's actually going on.

Let's not forget, Harry Truman called the war in Korea a police exercise, a police operation.

But I think it shows that Trump is confused about what his objectives are, and

I mean, the White House says it's been very clear what their objectives are.

Well, how many have they named over the course of the last three-plus weeks?

I think the correct objective is to overthrow the regime.

I don't think it's going to negotiate with any seriousness at all.

And I don't think that there's anybody in this regime with whom we can negotiate.

If we weren't prepared to stick this out, then I don't think the president ever should have started it.

I mean, we've seen the president saying that Iran really wants to make a deal.

The White House today, even when asked by my colleague Kristen Holmes who exactly they're speaking with, still haven't said who that person is.

Do you think these talks are genuine, or do you think the president is buying time?

Well, it could be he's buying time to assemble this additional military capability.

Perhaps he just wants to show he's trying to be reasonable.

But the chances of reaching an acceptable agreement with this regime, no matter how many of their leaders we have killed, is zero.

And what we need to do is continue destroying the instruments of Iranian state power, like the Revolutionary Guard and its subsidiaries, the Quds Force, which threatens us and Israel and the Gulf Arabs externally, and

the besieged militia, which threatens its people internally.

By doing that, we are destabilizing the regime.

We're not looking for somebody within the regime we can negotiate with, but

somebody outside, somebody from the regular army, not caught up in the extreme fanatic views of the regime itself.

On Cargilland, you said that you think the United States should block Iranian oil shipments and take Cargilland.

I mean, we're seeing this troop buildup, and

we were just talking last night about the 82nd Airborne, what exactly they're designed to do.

Do you think that that is something that they're actively preparing for, not just keeping options open?

Do you think taking Cargilland is a real thing we could see in the next few days or weeks?

Well, if we had taken Cargilland about three weeks ago, when it still would have been a surprise to the Iranians, that might have made some sense.

I think the main thing is to stop the flow of Iranian oil onto the world market.

I don't understand why we didn't blockade the Strait of Hormuz ourself at the beginning.

To allow any Iranian oil to get out was a mistake.

To waive sanctions on Iranian oil is a mistake.

We don't want to finance the Iranian regime in its military campaign against our service members.

So at this point, I think Cargilland I mean, one way to look at it might be it's a deception operation.

Let the Iranian authorities put all kinds of mines on Cargilland and around it and divert their attention from something else.

On the Iranian oil, I asked the president about this on Monday because I've covered him for a long time.

He has heavily criticized Obama for allowing those pallets of cash of $1.7 billion to go to Iran when he was in office.

By unsanctioning that Iranian oil that's at sea, what does that say to you?

Is that something you would have advocated for if you were advising him?

And it's not clear that the administration has taken steps to prevent the purchasers of that oil from making payments to Iran.

I think if we'd left the oil sanctioned, we had grounds to stop their ships at sea.

There are a lot of other things we could have done.

It's just inconceivable that we would allow financing to get to the government in Tehran to continue the war operation.

But the main thing is to make sure no more of their oil gets out.

And honestly, as I say, I don't understand why we didn't do that on the first day of the war.

What's your biggest question about what's going to happen next year and what you're watching, based on what we've heard from either the president or his top officials today and yesterday?

Well, the question I've asked from the beginning is, how much have we cooperated with opposition figures and forces and factions inside the country?

How much help are we giving the opposition?

What are we doing to find alternative leaders other than those in the regime itself?

What resources are we giving to the opposition?

What can we do to put more pressure on the regime, not just from the attacks from the sky, but

on the ground, that after the attacks finish, which they will at some point, if the regime is not already collapsed by then, how to continue the struggle with the Iranian people?

We'll see if those questions get answered.

Ambassador John Bolton, thank you for joining us tonight.

I'm joined tonight by CNN's global affairs analyst Brett McGurk and our military analyst, Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz.

And General, when you look at this and you see about the potential for ground operations, what's your sense of at least what they're preparing to give themselves the potential to do?

Well, I think first, the intent of bringing these 82nd Airborne Paratroopers forward is to take the slack out of potential employment of ground forces.

Obviously, the Marines, two MUs, are moving into the area of operations as well.

Marines and infantry from the United States Army, they do a multitude of tasks, but

seizing terrain is certainly high on that list.

I mean, if this let's say the president does this, and

if he does, what would I mean, can you explain to us what that would look like in the initial phase, at least?

Well, what's coming in with the MU is the rotary wing lift that would be necessary to bring forces on Cargilland or potentially on the shore of Iran, on the north side of the Strait of Hormuz, for instance.

So they have the capability to move the force as the RMU comes in, and

But you also have to bring in all the enablers.

So the good thing is we have air supremacy.

So we have dominance of the air, the ability to employ fires to support those forces as they come ashore, probably by a helicopter assault, and

It's an extremely high-risk operation, but

they have the capability and the enablers to support the force once it gets on the ground.

But the likelihood of them being able to do this uncontested is very unlikely.

I mean, with that, Brett, obviously, that is why the stakes have been so raised here in terms of what this would look like and if it is contested, how that would play out.

What's your sense from what you're hearing from officials today?

Is anything happening, in your understanding?

I think, Caitlin, we called the diplomacy last night.

We said, probably unlikely to go anywhere, but you're testing it out.

You're kind of positioning, not really negotiating.

Today, Iran came out with a very maximalist set of demands.

So that's all going on, trying to see if anything's there.

I think the president would love to have an option there.

Again, right now, I think the odds there are very low.

But signal from noise, we have two dates on the calendar I'd keep in mind.

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