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Speaker 1: It seems ages ago, but we count it in days

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Speaker 1: where teams surveillance said we're going to speak to people

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Speaker 1: with experience. We had a screaming Eagle of the one

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Speaker 1: hundred and first Airborne with US, I believe yesterday. We

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Speaker 1: had a marine of Fallujah with US a few days ago.

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Speaker 1: And now on the political front, we have someone controversial

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Speaker 1: opinionated whether you agree or disagree with John Bolton. Read

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Speaker 1: his Telegraph article which sets up the region and around

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Speaker 1: as we look at a fractured eastern Mediterranean. He's a

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Speaker 1: former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, former National

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Speaker 1: Security advisor, and a fractious relationship with President Trump. Ambassador Bolton,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining Bloomberg today.

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Speaker 2: I right with you.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to mince words. John. You go back to

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Speaker 1: an internship with a guy named Spiro t Agnew You

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Speaker 1: have seen it all. How is this different from nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty seven, in nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 2: Three, Well, I think in Washington we really are suffering

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Speaker 2: from acute lack of leadership and by a lot of

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Speaker 2: people who forget that they were sent here not to

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Speaker 2: represent themselves, but to represent the country. You know, you

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Speaker 2: remember back in the British Parliament in World War Two

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Speaker 2: when the labor leader got up after one of Neville

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Speaker 2: Chamberlain's acts of appeasement and said he was there to

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Speaker 2: speak for the labor leader who was not around, and

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Speaker 2: Leo Amory, a conservative MP, got up and said, speak

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Speaker 2: for England. And what we need people in Washington to

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Speaker 2: be doing is speaking for America. And sadly they're not.

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Speaker 1: To look back with twenty twenty vision. How did we

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Speaker 1: get here within the administration that you served in recently

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Speaker 1: the Trump administration. Do we have these evil and difficult

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Speaker 1: events because we were off the watch one in three

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Speaker 1: and five years ago.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think we have failed to see what's

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Speaker 2: been happening in the Middle East coherently for close to

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Speaker 2: twenty years now. And I think at the root, but

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Speaker 2: the principal threat to peace and security in the Middle

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Speaker 2: East today and for some years back, has been Iran.

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Speaker 2: In the current circumstance, they're the ones who have armed

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Speaker 2: and trained and equipped and financed Hamas. They've done the

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Speaker 2: same with Palestin and Islamic Jihad. They've done the same

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Speaker 2: with Hesbela. They've done the same with the Syrian military.

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Speaker 2: And remember just yesterday demonstrating again they've done it with

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Speaker 2: the Huti rebels in Yemen. A US destroyer in the

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Speaker 2: Red Sea destroyed several cruise missiles, and I think some

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Speaker 2: drones heading north in the Red Sea, probably toward Israel.

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Speaker 2: So the Hoodies wouldn't have two rocks to rub together

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Speaker 2: if it weren't for the equipment Iran has given them.

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Speaker 2: Iran is the central factor here, and last night the

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Speaker 2: President's address, which was fine as far as it went,

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Speaker 2: did not address that crucial point. How can you have

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Speaker 2: a strategy if you don't know what the main threat is.

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Speaker 3: Who's porn vulnerable right now? Iran or Israel.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think at the moment it's Israel. But I

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Speaker 2: think Israel's perfectly equipped to deal with this on their own.

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Speaker 2: And I hope they haven't lost the spirit they once had,

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Speaker 2: which is they will defend themselves. They can do it alone,

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Speaker 2: they can use weapons, but they don't expect anybody else

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Speaker 2: to come and fight their battles for them, nor do

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Speaker 2: they expect to take direction from anybody else either. And

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Speaker 2: I do think there's something to the argument that that

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Speaker 2: bear hug that President Biden gave bb Net Yahoo was

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Speaker 2: not just affection, but an effort to insert himself into

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Speaker 2: Israeli decision making. Frankly, I'd rather have net Yahoo make

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Speaker 2: the decisions than Biden. If you're faced with a threat

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Speaker 2: like we've seen in Hamas and the deeper threat, the

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Speaker 2: real threat from Iran, you know you can live with

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Speaker 2: it for a long time until you die from it.

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Speaker 2: And that's why I think the government of Israel, and

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Speaker 2: I think even more than that, perhaps the people of Israel,

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Speaker 2: intend to see the Hamas threat eliminated. In the Gaza strow.

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Speaker 3: A lot of people are saying that one of the

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Speaker 3: big sticking points for the US going more aggressive after

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Speaker 3: Iran right now is A. It would cause an even

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Speaker 3: bigger conflagration and putting that gen back in the bottle

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Speaker 3: is very difficult. B You have a population in Iran

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Speaker 3: that actually supports the United States and Israel to a

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Speaker 3: large degree and doesn't necessarily agree with the government positions.

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Speaker 3: And number Three, oil prices would surge, and that would

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Speaker 3: be a problem for the global economy. How important is

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Speaker 3: that third factor to take into consideration.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think the concern the White House has for

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Speaker 2: rising oil prices is in the United States, they're worried

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Speaker 2: about November of next year. That's why they signed this

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Speaker 2: atrocious agreement with Maduro in Venezuela to pretend that he's

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Speaker 2: going to have free elections and to allow US sanctions

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Speaker 2: on the export of venezueale and oil to disappear. I

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Speaker 2: think they're desperate not to have oil prices go up.

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Speaker 2: The easy way, of course, would be to allow more

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Speaker 2: oil production in the United States, but they don't want

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Speaker 2: to do that because if the oil industry here got stronger,

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Speaker 2: it would be harder to dismand for their green agenda.

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Speaker 2: The real question is do you want to deal with

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Speaker 2: a threat from Iran or do you want to pretend

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Speaker 2: that it doesn't exist. The administration has gone out of

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Speaker 2: its way to pretend that it doesn't exist, including its

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Speaker 2: chief Iran negotiator, Rob Maley, being having his security clearance

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Speaker 2: suspended in April by the State Department's Diplomatic Security Bureau

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Speaker 2: that the chief negotiator under security investigation. It's just unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: John. My book of the year is Robert D. Kaplan's

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Speaker 1: The Loom of Time, which stretches from Morocco all the

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Speaker 1: way over to Persia, and the answer here Ambassador Bolton

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Speaker 1: is we have to carve out a relationship with friends

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Speaker 1: within the Middle East. How do we prosecute a new

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Speaker 1: strategy with Sunni Saudi Arabia versus Shia Iran, which you

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Speaker 1: consider to be our major threat.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think the threat is the regime in Iran.

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Speaker 2: Have any quarrel with the Iranian people. We've had good

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Speaker 2: relations with them before, and I think one reason that

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Speaker 2: Iran took this opportunity now and coincidentally the fiftieth anniversary

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Speaker 2: of the Yamkapur War, is they were very worried that

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Speaker 2: the strategic closeness between the Gulf Arab states, in particular

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Speaker 2: in Israel might be reaching a point where they could

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Speaker 2: no longer affect it, so that this for them, for Iran,

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Speaker 2: for the Malas in Tehran was a critical moment to act.

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Speaker 2: I think things were moving in the right direction. In fact,

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Speaker 2: I think if you ask the Gulf Arabs, they have

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Speaker 2: greater faith in Israel's strategic vision of the region than

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Speaker 2: they do with the United States.

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Speaker 1: John Bolton one final question, what is the new isolationism

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Speaker 1: of America? We want to run from this to a

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Speaker 1: great extent. That's what the polling says there's certain domestic tensions.

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Speaker 1: Are we isolationists as we all wait for this war?

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Speaker 2: Not yet, But there are two factors causing it. One

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Speaker 2: is Donald Trump, and I think he's had a pervasive effect,

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Speaker 2: sad to say in the republic Can Party. The second is,

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Speaker 2: for many years, our politicians have not treated our citizens

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Speaker 2: like adults and told them what the threats are that

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Speaker 2: we face in the world. I think if you talk

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Speaker 2: to citizens like they are adults, they'll understand the threat,

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Speaker 2: They'll do what we've always done as Americans, and we'll

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Speaker 2: find ways to defend ourselves. If you act like the

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Speaker 2: rest of the world doesn't matter, when suddenly find that

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Speaker 2: it does, it's no wonder people are surprised if their

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Speaker 2: leaders have been negligent.

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Speaker 1: John Bolton, thank you for joining Bloomberg Surveillance this warning.

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Speaker 1: Ambassador Bolton, a former National security advice