John Bolton: Iran Strike Could Mean ‘turmoil’ And ‘bloodshed’

President Donald Trump has long been interested in regime change in Iran, but his appetite for risk means he may not have fully prepared for what’s coming next, according to John Bolton, Trump’s onetime national security adviser.

While Bolton praised Trump’s strikes on Iran as the “most consequential decision” of his presidency, he warned that Trump and his administration could have acted impulsively without any appreciation for the complex aftermath of what is now a power vacuum.

“There could be a lot of turmoil, a lot of bloodshed,” Bolton said.

Notably, he added, there could be chaos in the Straits of Hormuz, which Iran has threatened to shut down in order to block the twenty percent of global oil supply that flows through it every day.

And while Trump frequently talks about taking the oil of countries that clash with the U.S., Bolton said he is less worried about that happening now. Bringing Iranian oil back online is in the interest of U.S. allies in the region, who will be less worried about market competition and more relieved that Ayatollah Khamenei is dead since many of them saw Iran as an “existential” threat.

For now, Bolton said, it would be wrong to assume that Trump will take any long-term consistent position on the future of Iran: The full consequences of Saturday’s strikes are still unknown and the risk of increased bloodshed is high. Bolton said it remains to be seen if voters will credit Trump for the results in Iran — or if it will be seen as another foreign policy distraction that compromises his ability to deliver for Americans.

“He can swing wildly on a given issue in the course of a day and he's obviously swung all the way from where he was in the first term to regime change,” Bolton said. “He could swing back.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

You've been in White House conversations before around Iran with Trump. Do you think he and his team have fully considered all the consequences here?

It would be different from his normal behavior, to say the least, because he doesn't particularly think strategically. But obviously, something persuaded him that he didn't have any alternative. Some might say he saw the consequences of the negotiations with [Steve] Witkoff and [Jared] Kushner, which were going nowhere.

I came to this conclusion 25 years ago [during the George W. Bush administration]. I'm glad he finally got around to it. But if you conclude that you can't change regime behavior, then you don't have any other logical alternative except acquiescence in Iran getting a nuclear weapon, besides changing the regime. He may not have thought beyond that. I am very worried that they have not done adequate consultation with the opposition on the ground in Iran, and I'm perfectly prepared to acknowledge that coordination is difficult, because while the opposition is very widespread, it doesn't really have a leadership structure. It really is spontaneous. This is what the people actually believe.

So, in any regime change situation, you have to have an opposition that can work on figures in the regime to defect, basically, to bring colonels, generals in the regular conventional military, not the Revolutionary Guard, but the conventional military, over to the side of the opposition, and maybe even some figures in the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] itself.

Because when people see the regime's days are numbered, all kinds of ideologies flow out the window and they begin thinking about looking out for number one and making sure they're on the winning side. So they don't need to convert to being anti supreme leader or anything like that. They just have to figure their odds are better with the other side. That's how a regime like this fractures at the top. And people thought for some time that, before the January demonstrations, the optimum time for regime change comes when Ayatollah Khamenei dies.

How worried are you about the Strait of Hormuz? Do you think Iran could meaningfully shut them down and stop 20 percent of the global oil supply?

I think in an existential case, the answer would be yes. [Trump] talked about sinking the Iranian Navy, and I've been making that same point, because the Iranian Navy, obviously, in the tight confines of the Persian Gulf, would be a threat to our bases and Bahrain and Qatar and everywhere up and down the Arabian Peninsula. They can't mine the Strait of Hormuz, if they don't have the Navy, right? Obviously they went after the air defenses, and I'm sure they've gone after the ballistic missile launch sites, radars, production facilities, but I got to believe the Navy's high up on that target.

But all Iran needs to do is hit one tanker with a couple drones and all ships would have to start avoiding the Strait, right?

All the ships have gone to port, so they've got nothing to hit at this stage, and that's why the mining is critical. If you put the mines into the water, it is a dangerous, time-consuming operation to de-mine even though the Strait is very confined geographically. Nobody wants to lose a destroyer sweeping up Iranian mines.

There will be a temporary pause of oil going through the Strait of Hormuz while people wait to see. They're just not going to risk it.

It’s not like no oil will be coming out, but for at least a short period of time to avoid the insurance costs if nothing else, the insurance companies are saying, “Get those tankers in port somewhere."

It’s likely to cause spikes potentially in domestic gas prices right during election season in the midterms. 

If the price goes up, American oil production picks up too. People immediately turn the taps back on.

For Trump’s affordability message, which is key for Republicans in midterm races right now, gas prices are one of the biggest metrics of success that he constantly references. How do you think today’s actions could impact the midterms? 

By definition, a spike is temporary and he must have been aware of it. It makes one reason why it's still hard to understand why he did it, because there's a risk there. I don't think there's any denying that. And I think he's already at risk of further fragmenting his base. By the way, for the isolationist in particular, can you imagine what JD Vance is thinking now? He can't be happy.

And did Trump ever tell you he wanted to take Iran's oil? You know, do you think that's part of his motivation here? 

Well, oil is always on his mind. Iran has perhaps the second largest reserves of oil, maybe the third largest, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It has, I think, the world's largest reserves of natural gas.

If Iran under some new government is released from the sanctions, it's going to take a certain amount of investment to attempt to upgrade the system. It's pretty dilapidated, not as bad as Venezuela, but there's not been a lot of capital investment in it in recent years. But in the long-term energy supply situation, if Iran becomes a normal country, the price of oil and gas will go through the floor.

That means it's easier to sanction Russia by just saying, “Nobody can buy Russian oil.” If you have that much additional oil from both Iran and Venezuela at some point, then you don't need Russian oil at all.

In your book, The Room Where It Happened, you wrote that large
 numbers
 of
 people wanted
 Trump to
go
to
 war
with Iran, but that “it
 would
 never
 happen
 because
 of
 him. Vintage
 Trump,
 moving
 from
 a
 deal
 in
 one
 day
 to
 all-out
 war
 in
 mere seconds.”
 How much do you suspect that kind of attitude is at play here for Trump?

It's just not his pattern or practice to do long-term strategic thinking or to say, “The objective now is regime change.” How do we go about it? What are the risks? What are the contingencies? What's plan B? What's Plan C? He just doesn't do that.

And I think that is reflected, if my concern is correct, in that he's not consulted with the Iranian opposition. That's a big problem. While our military planning remains without comparison in the world — because Trump doesn't get involved in it — they go through all the things that you should go through, and that's one reason why things still look pretty good from that perspective. The rest of the planning process through the National Security Council has just ground to a halt.

When you were National Security Adviser, how did Trump approach Iran at that time? Did he seem to be informed about the Straits of Hormuz? Did he know how meaningful oil market disruption could happen there?

He knew some of it. Remember, in the 2016 campaign, one of his big issues was getting out of Obama's 2015 nuclear deal. When I came in in April of 2018 I said, “You still want to get out of the deal?” And he said, “Yes.” And we did in May. It just took somebody who knew how to do it.

So his opposition to Iran getting a nuclear weapon, opposition to the 2015 Obama deal, was kind of baked in from the beginning and I think that's still some piece of it. Whatever else he says about his objectives, that refrain, “You cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear bomb,” goes on and on and on.

What do you think comes next for Iran now?

I think there could be a lot of turmoil, a lot of bloodshed — because the factions within the Islamic Revolution, if they don't have a supreme leader, and if the next level down is decimated, and maybe even the third level is severely diminished, it’s going to be a struggle within the regime.

And it’s that kind of chaotic situation that gives the opposition and generals and the regular military an opportunity to say, "We've got to prevent this from spinning into total civil war. We're going to take over and everybody's going to calm down. Then we're going to figure out what we do next."

What do you think our Middle Eastern allies are going to think about Trump if he does try to take Iran’s oil? Do you think that's going to fly with them?

I don't really think he's going to try and take it. If you get production back online, the price is going to drop pretty quickly. That’s what the Arabs want. They competed with Iranian oil for a long time, until we started putting sanctions on it in the George W. Bush administration. They recognize the size of the Iranian reserves in oil and gas, and they know at some point they're going to have to deal with it.

That's one among many reasons why Saudi and the United Arab Emirates are going through all this enormous diversification, because they don't want to be reliant simply on oil and gas. It will always be a component of their national income, but they know there's too much risk, whether it's green policy or whatever.

I think they are more than happy to see the Ayatollah killed and the regime fall because it's more than a matter of economics. It's existential for them, too.

Lastly, is there anything you want the American people to know about your own experiences being in the room with Trump talking about Iran? 

I think his pattern is he can swing wildly on a given issue in the course of a day. And he's obviously swung all the way from where he was in the first term to regime change. He could swing back. I wouldn't say we're on a short course toward from point A to point B. You never are with Trump.