The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran proved that not even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is safe in his own capital, and Iran risks its reputation in the region if it doesn't strike back hard against Israel, John Bolton told Newsmax on Monday.
Haniyeh was killed July 31 reportedly by a remotely detonated explosive device hidden in his room while he was in Iran to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Khamenei has vowed revenge against Israel for killing "a dear guest in our home," even though the Jewish state has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the attack.
"We're on the verge of potentially significant steps by either Iran or Israel or both," Bolton, a former national security adviser in the Trump administration, told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "The Iranians look like they're unable to protect their own capital after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. It's a signal that even the supreme leader is not safe in Iran and Iran's reputation in the region can't last if they don't strike hard against Israel."
Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he doesn't think Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will yield to pressure from the Biden administration to "take the win" and not respond in kind, the way it did after Iran attacked Israel with more than 300 drones and missiles in April. That attack, the first directly launched by Iran against Israel, was sparked by a suspected Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building.
"I think the Biden administration's basic mistake, and it goes back to the Obama administration, they do not understand the Iranian strategy against Israel, against the Gulf Arabs, against the United States," Bolton said. "These terrorist groups don't operate independently of Iran. The Iranians themselves call what they're after the Ring of Fire strategy, that it involves multiple terrorist groups and Iran's own military capability, and we're about to see if that is now activated, not just on one front, the Gaza front, but all the fronts in this theater."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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