Israel has encouraged the US president to attack the Islamic Republic during both of his terms, John Bolton has said
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has encouraged President Donald Trump to carry out a regime change operation in Iran for many years, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton has told Afshin Rattansi, host of ‘New World’.
West Jerusalem wanted Trump to launch an attack on Tehran already during his first presidential
Israel has encouraged the US president to attack the Islamic Republic during both of his terms, John Bolton has said
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has encouraged President Donald Trump to carry out a regime change operation in Iran for many years, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton has told Afshin Rattansi, host of ‘New World’.
West Jerusalem wanted Trump to launch an attack on Tehran already during his first presidential term and continued lobbying for it during his second one, Bolton said, who served between 2018 and 2019.
“I urged that our objective be regime change, so did Netanyahu,” he told Rattansi, explaining that “There is no change in what Trump has been hearing from” the Israeli prime minister over the years. He nevertheless denied that Trump’s decision to launch the attack in late February was influenced by Israel.
Bolton criticized the president for what he called the lack of a clear goal in his campaign against the Islamic Republic and said Trump had failed to “make the case to the American people” about “why the regime change in Iran is necessary” – despite it supposedly being a “very compelling one.”
Known for his hawkish foreign policy views, Bolton maintained that the US should continue to pursue regime change in Iran and claimed that the government in Tehran is “crumbling” from within. However, the former White House official came up short on any specific strategy the US could use to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping remains severely disrupted by the Iran conflict.
The US president has vowed to reduce the American military footprint on the continent after feuding with European leaders over the Iran war
The Pentagon has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany, with US President Donald Trump warning that the pullout could only be the beginning.
The move comes amid a sharp divide between the Trump administration and European NATO members over the Iran war, Washington’s calls to increa
The US president has vowed to reduce the American military footprint on the continent after feuding with European leaders over the Iran war
The Pentagon has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany, with US President Donald Trump warning that the pullout could only be the beginning.
The move comes amid a sharp divide between the Trump administration and European NATO members over the Iran war, Washington’s calls to increase defense spending, and a bitter aftertaste from the dispute over Greenland.
‘Cutting a lot further’
The withdrawal was announced on Friday, with the Pentagon signaling that the process would be over within the next six to 12 months. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the “decision follows a thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground.”
However, Trump – who has for years been toying with the idea of a US withdrawal from the bloc – signaled that the figure could be even higher. “We're going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” he said on Saturday. He also suggested that he could pull troops out of Spain and Italy – nations he said were unhelpful in the Iran war.
In addition, Reuters reported that the US dropped a Biden-era plan to deploy a US battalion with long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany.
Germany is home to America’s largest military presence in Europe, currently hosting more than 36,000 active-duty US personnel. It is also home to critical training, logistics, and medical infrastructure, including Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest US military hospital abroad. In total, there are over 80,000 US troops in Europe, with many having been redeployed to the continent by the Biden administration after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
Iran war looms over the decision
The announcement came days after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz once again criticized the US-Israel war on Iran, saying that Washington “obviously has no strategy,” adding, referring to the US, that “an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”
It did not take Trump long to fire a broadside in response. He declared that Merz “doesn't know what he’s talking about,” advising the chancellor to “spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine” and “fixing his broken Country.” He also suggested that Merz was “doing a terrible job. He’s got immigration problems, he’s got energy problems, he’s got problems of all kind[s].”
According to Reuters, the current transatlantic rift has also been exacerbated by Trump’s simmering anger over European pushback to his attempt to annex Greenland this winter.
US ‘schizophrenic’
According to an AP source, the US military was not been warned of the decision to pull troops from Germany and learned about it “in real time,” though the Pentagon disagreed, saying that the move “follows a comprehensive, multilayered process” with input from the European command and other top officials.
In addition, an unnamed European insider told Reuters that Trump’s decision was another sign of an “increasingly unpredictable and sometimes ‘schizophrenic’ dynamic.” He noted that Trump’s shock announcement came as uninformed US military commanders in Europe had been talking up commitment and cooperation, just as their counterparts in Washington were doing the opposite.
US lawmakers have also protested the withdrawal announcement, with Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services committees saying they were “very concerned” by the drawdown.
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama urged the Pentagon to redeploy the troops eastward rather than send them home – to countries that “have made substantial investments to host US troops” on NATO’s front line – warning the decision risked “undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal” to Russia.
Military buildup as planned
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius played down the news, calling the drawdown “foreseeable.” The Defense Ministry spokesperson also said the development showed “we must strengthen the European pillar within NATO.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was blunter, saying that the greatest threat to NATO is not its external enemies, but rather its “ongoing disintegration[...] We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.”
Still, the overall trend of the US detachment from Europe barely comes as a shock, with European NATO members looking to ramp up military spending. The rearmament drive was partly driven by Trump himself, who pushed other NATO members to invest 5% of GDP annually in core defense and defense-related spending by 2035.
On top of that, the European Commission unveiled its Readiness 2030 plan, which aims to provide more than €800 billion ($938 billion) in defense spending across the EU. Germany alone has embarked on a historic military buildup, committing to spend more than €500 billion on defense by 2029.
Moscow has consistently rejected speculation that it could attack NATO as “nonsense,” suggesting that European nations are using “propaganda” to portray Russia as an enemy to mask its own crises.
One screenwriter has called the series of gatherings with creatives a case of “clear propaganda”
NATO is holding closed-door consultations with TV and film industry professionals across Europe and the US, The Guardian reported on Sunday. The move has prompted accusations that the bloc is working to leverage the arts for “fear mongering” and “propaganda,” it added.
The military bloc has held three private meetings with directors, producers and scr
One screenwriter has called the series of gatherings with creatives a case of “clear propaganda”
NATO is holding closed-door consultations with TV and film industry professionals across Europe and the US, The Guardian reported on Sunday. The move has prompted accusations that the bloc is working to leverage the arts for “fear mongering” and “propaganda,” it added.
The military bloc has held three private meetings with directors, producers and screenwriters in Los Angeles, Brussels and Paris, and is planning to convene with members of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) in London next month, the newspaper wrote.
The upcoming meeting will be overseen by the British think tank Chatham House and will discuss the “evolving security situation in Europe and beyond,” according to the report. NATO cyber and innovation technology deputy head James Appathurai is expected to attend, among other officials, the newspaper added.
So far, the conversations have partly “inspired” at least “three separate projects,” The Guardian wrote, citing an internal WGGB e-mail.
The military bloc’s move has reportedly sparked concern in the film and TV industry. The planned meeting is “clearly propaganda,” Irish film writer Alan O’Gorman said, as cited by The Guardian.
“I think there’s fearmongering throughout Europe at the moment that our defenses are down,” he reportedly said, adding that he has seen a media and government push in Ireland “to present NATO in a positive light and align ourselves with them.”
Other screenwriters were “pretty offended that art would be used in a way that was supporting war” and believed they were being asked to “contribute towards propaganda for NATO,” he said, according to the newspaper.
The Washington-led military bloc has been undergoing a growing internal rift, with US President Donald Trump again describing NATO as a “paper tiger” after multiple member states refused to join his war on Iran in recent months. Tensions between European NATO countries and the US had already been heightened by Trump’s threats in preceding months to annex Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland.
The greatest threat the bloc currently faces emanates not from “external enemies,” but rather its “ongoing disintegration,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday.
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