Bolton to Newsmax: Death Plots Show Iran 'Utterly Undeterred' by Biden

The Iranian plot to assassinate several American targets shows that the country is "utterly undeterred by the Biden administration," former U.S. ambassador and national security adviser John Bolton, one of the targets in the plot, told Newsmax Saturday.

The administration, Bolton said on Newsmax's "The Count," is "on its knees trying to get back into the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and at the same time, Iran is boldly threatening Americans.

"When you look at the scope of this operation, it is tantamount to an act of war against our country," Bolton added.

Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several others were revealed in a death plot to avenge the 2020 killing of one of Iran's top leaders, Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The Department of Justice has charged a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for offering $300,000 to have Bolton killed.

Meanwhile, author Salman Rushdie, who has been targeted by Iran for years over his writing, was attacked and stabbed allegedly by Hadi Matar, and Bolton said he's concerned about Iran's rising threat not only to himself but for Americans at large.

"We know from what's been put on the public record that I'm not the only former government official targeted," Bolton said.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and his administration are willing to give up all the advances made through Donald Trump's administration concerning the deal, reached in 2015 under Barack Obama's administration, said Bolton.

"The deal itself is badly flawed and Iran has been violating it vigorously since 2015," said Bolton. "In the Trump administration, we withdrew from the deal. That was the right thing to do. We put massive U.S. sanctions on Iran, which hurt its economy very badly."

But Biden's concessions are growing, including weakening the United States' ability to impose sanctions directly on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, "who are the people planning all of these various assassination attempts," said Bolton. "It's a terrible sign of weakness, but the administration is obsessed with getting back into this deal."

The former ambassador further commented on the potential of Iran getting nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear weapons in the hands of a rogue state like Iran or North Korea is very threatening to the United States," said Bolton. "Iran's perfectly capable of giving a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group and is itself the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. It's engaging in acts of terrorism against American citizens, so it's very worrying now."

The United States' allies in Israel and others in the Middle East have "been systematically sabotaging" parts of Iran's program over time, and Israel has made it clear that it will do what it needs to protect its country from "what they fear to be a potential nuclear holocaust," he added.

Meanwhile, the threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin is continuing to grow, and Bolton said Saturday he believes that as the front lines in Ukraine begin to stabilize, Putin will "seize the diplomatic initiative."

"[He will] declare a halt to offensive military operations and call on Ukraine to negotiate a cease-fire, and what I'm really worried about at that point is that the Europeans collapse," said Bolton. "They're scared of not having natural gas from Russia this winter."

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has not been strong on the issue of Ukraine, said Bolton, adding that he's worried Putin will "drive a wedge among the NATO allies that will leave Ukraine with next to no alternative but to accept the ceasefire."

That means that wherever the line has been drawn when the ceasefire takes effect would be the new Russia-Ukraine border, said Bolton, "so I'm worried that NATO doesn't have a plan, and by NATO, I mean the United States because we're NATO's leader, and we are subject to being outflanked by Putin on the diplomatic front."

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