NMX: Bolton: Obama Failing to Stop Nuclear Iran, Syria

President Barack Obama’s policy on Iran obtaining nuclear weapons “has been a real failure,” former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview from the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

“He has run a three-and-a-half year campaign, as opposed to governing, and his policy on the Iranian nuclear weapons front in particular has been a real failure,” Bolton tells Newsmax. “He’s proceeded on the assumption that he could negotiate Iran out of its program. That was never going to happen.”

Bolton said that the latest International Atomic Energy Association's (IAEA) report on Iranian nuclear development, due out this week, will document further uranium deposits at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which is buried deep beneath rock and soil to protect it from air strikes, among other developments.

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“The conclusion from that is that despite economic sanctions, despite political efforts by the Obama administration, Iran continues to make steady progress toward that objective of nuclear weapons. The threat not only remains but is growing.”

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Bolton, who urged Israel last month to retaliate against Iran for the killing of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, said on Wednesday that “Israel will hold off until the very last minute but, ultimately, the decision on whether or when to strike Iran will be based on physics not on American politics.

“There’s a lot of speculation that they will strike before our election. I don’t pretend to have to insider information but I think they’ll wait until they don’t think they can wait any longer. If that’s before the election, fine; if that’s after the election, fine, from their perspective.”

Any such attack, Bolton said, “would be at the very outer limit of Israel’s capacity. We, obviously, have a much greater capacity.”

Obama’s poor leadership is even more acute on Syria and its leader, President Bashar al-Assad, Bolton said.

“He has operated under the assumption that Russia shared our objective to take Assad out of power. That was never true. Russia has vetoed three U.N. Security Council sanctions. We have not identified leaders among the opposition forces that we can really trust – and we have no certainty that they will not themselves conduct a bloodbath in Syria if the Assad regime falls. Not to mention, what happens to Syria’s very large stocks of chemical weapons.”

Because of the president’s ineffectiveness in foreign policy, “the rest of the world, friend and foe alike, sees a weaker America, in retreat from its global responsibilities,” Bolton said. “Polls have been taken in countries around the world that show that America has less respect under Obama” than President George W. Bush.

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“Even in countries where Obama has made a special effort, like in Egypt, where he made a famous speech early in his administration about the U.S. and Islam, the U.S. has a lower favorability rating today than when George Bush left office.

“What it proves is that America must protect its interest in the world,” Bolton concluded. “It is better to be respected than to be loved.”