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John Bolton Is Threatening Iran. Good.By RAY TAKEYH7-9 minutesJohn BoltonAP Photo/Cliff OwenThe latest news to rattle the Washington establishment is that John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has asked the Pentagon for military options against Iran. The commentariat and the Democrats in exile are aghast, and insist that such bellicosity will only invite belligerence from Iran. Many former Obama administration officials fear that Bolton’s truculence may lead Iran to resume its nuclear program. But the truth is that when dealing with Iran, threats usually work while blandishments only whet the appetite of the mullahs who run the country.No president was more concerned with the Islamic revolutionaries’ sensibilities than Jimmy Carter. Even after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats hostages, Carter hoped to resolve the crisis in a manner that did not jeopardize the possibility of resuming ties with the theocracy. Such deference helped prolong the crisis for 444 days and essentially doomed Carter’s presidency. However, during the long hostage saga, on one occasion, Carter took forceful action and his policy actually worked. After storming of the embassy, there was much loose talk in Tehran that the U.S. officials would be put on trial. The administration sent a private note to Iran that any harm done to the hostages would provoke American military retaliation. Soon, all the talk of public trial was quietly shelved. This proved to be a lesson not learned, not just by Carter but by many other American statesmen who would go on to deal with Iran.Story Continued BelowThe Reagan administration may best be known for the Iran-Contra affair, whereby it traded arms for the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by Iran’s Hezbollah proxy. However, the tragic and accidental shooting down of an Iranian commercial airliner in July 1988 was actually critical to ending the Iran-Iraq war. For eight years, Iran had rebuffed all entreaties and offers of diplomatic mediation, as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini held tight to his goal of deposing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein irrespective of the conflict’s human toll. By the summer of 1988, there was an ongoing conflict between American naval ships and Iranian speed boats laying down mines in the Gulf waters. As the confrontation on the high seas was taking place, an Iranian passenger plane was making its way to Dubai. As the aircraft approached, USS Vincennes mistook it for a hostile vessel and shot it down, killing 290 passengers.Read more at: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/15/john-bolton-is-threatening-iran-good-224015
