Bolton hits Biden for putting ‘enormous pressure’ on Israel to not ‘do more’ to Iran

Former national security adviser John Bolton said Friday that President Biden is putting “tremendous pressure” on Israel not to do “any more” against Iran after Israel launched retaliatory strikes following the Syrian attack earlier this month. ” was criticized.

Early Friday morning, Israeli forces struck near Iran’s main air base and nuclear facilities. The attack appears to be a response to drone and missile attacks carried out over the weekend.

“To that extent, I think what Israel did was OK,” Bolton said Friday on “Cats & Cosby,” a radio show hosted by John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby. “I think they were under a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure, from the Biden administration not to do more. I understand that, but it’s a difficult position.”

“But even within Israel’s war cabinet, people believe that opposition leader Benny Gantz wanted to go further,” he continued. “And I think they should have done that. I think Iran was very lucky here.”

Although Israeli officials had previously threatened a strong response to Iran’s latest attacks, they were relatively small in scale. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even warned:[t]”The State of Israel will do whatever it takes to protect itself,” he told the cabinet.

Analysts said the rationale for Israel’s relatively small response was to try to prevent the current conflict between Middle Eastern countries from escalating further.

“The objective was to restore deterrence and deter further Iranian attacks on mainland Israel,” wrote Richard Haas, chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “But Israel’s actions were tailored to make it difficult for Iran to react. The Israeli government is not hyping up what happened.”

In an interview with NBC News on Friday evening, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian questioned Israel’s role in the incident and said he had no evidence that the military was behind the attack. He also said Iran would not retaliate for Friday’s attack but would take action if it happened again.