In offering condolences to Iran for President Ebrahim Raisi's death, the Biden administration displayed its obsession with appeasing a regime that sponsors terrorism, former national security adviser John Bolton told Newsmax on Tuesday.
The U.S. State Department announced its condolences within hours of Raisi's sudden death in a weekend helicopter crash.
"This man is known to his own people as the 'Butcher of Tehran,' and there were demonstrations all over Iran when the news came out that in fact he had died," Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., told "Wake Up America."
"I think it's a very good opportunity for the people of Iran to see if they can bring this government down over a period of time, but the Biden administration, like the Obama administration before it, is absolutely obsessed with the idea that if they just beg Iran's rulers enough, sweetness and light will break out in the Middle East, and it's absolutely preposterous.
"It's degrading, in fact, for the U.S. to do this. Other nations want to do it? That's up to them, but we shouldn't do it."
Co-host Rob Finnerty also asked Bolton about the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the war against Hamas in Gaza.
"Well the Democratic Party has supported the International Criminal Court (ICC) for a long time. [Then-President] Bill Clinton negotiated the Rome statute that created it. He signed it," Bolton told Finnerty.
"I've always said my proudest moment in government was in the George W. Bush administration when I unsigned it on behalf of the United States, meaning we are no part of it, not bound by any article in the statute."
Bolton continued, saying the ICC's pursuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and other Israeli officials "demonstrated what this court is really all about."
"It had an anti-American, anti-American ally stance from the beginning because what they were seeking to do was find ways to constrain the United States," Bolton said.
"Israel for a long time has been the canary in the coal mine for U.S. It gets attacked before we get attacked. This is a message for us as much as it is for Israel."
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Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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