Eli Lake, Columnist

Without Bolton, Trump Can Now Go Soft on Iran

The president is basically pushing for the same kind of nuclear bargain that his predecessor negotiated.

September 10, 2019 at 7:50 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Out of the office.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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President Donald Trump’s decision to part ways with his national security adviser, John Bolton, was overdetermined. They disagreed on Afghanistan. They differed on North Korea. There was tension between them over Venezuela. They couldn’t even agree on whether Bolton quit or was fired.

Their most significant dispute, however, was on Iran. Bolton favored completely abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated under former President Barack Obama and pressed for maximum pressure on Iran’s leaders. Along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Bolton helped persuade Trump earlier this year to retain a U.S. military presence in Syria to counter Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.