JOHN BOLTON WANTS REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN: DEUTSCHE WELLE

Former Trump adviser John Bolton has criticized the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, saying it was based on a "flat-out lie" but he also slammed Trump for failing to bring down the Iranian regime.

"I don't think we're going to have real peace and security in the Middle East until the regime of the ayatollahs is replaced, not just because of their threat on nuclear weapons, but because of their continued support for terrorism," Bolton told Deutsche Welle (DW) television.

Bolton blamed Trump for falling short of the maximum pressure policy regarding Iran. "I blame it on the president for not following through on the logic of that policy and bringing the regime in Tehran down," Bolton said.

He claimed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and several Western powers "is based on a flat-out lie by Iran that they never had a nuclear weapons program."

Bolton, who also served as US ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, said countries including Germany and the UK "may appreciate the danger of the regime" but "overestimate the effect" of the agreement that Iran signed.

Citing information gained via an Israeli intelligence raid, Bolton said that Iran "had a nuclear weapons program and I think they never gave it up. There's been no strategic indication that the Iranian leadership is prepared to do that. So, this is yet another agreement by one authoritarian state to a bunch of gullible democracies that says, ‘Oh, yeah, we'll give up that nuclear weapons program in exchange for tangible economic benefits.'"

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