Bolton as U.S. security adviser 'shameful' - Iran official

 

FILE PHOTO: John Bolton speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S. February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - A senior Iranian official said on Sunday it was "shameful" that U.S. President Donald Trump had named John Bolton as national security adviser because of his ties with rebels whom Iran sees as "terrorists", the state news agency IRNA reported.

 

Commentators said last week when Bolton was named that it signalled a toughening of Washington's stance on Tehran and another nail in the coffin of the Obama-era agreement between Iran and world powers to limit Tehran's nuclear ambitions, already cast into doubt by Trump himself.

 

"For a seemingly superpower country, it is shameful that its national security official would be receiving a salary from a terrorist sect," IRNA quoted Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying.

 

Bolton has been a supporter of the exiled Mujahideen-e Khalq (People's Mujahideen) armed opposition group which Iran sees as terrorists, and has spoken at the group's events.

 

Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for Bolton, said on Sunday that Bolton "doesn't respond to propaganda from a government long included on the United States' list of state sponsors of terrorism."

 

There was no immediate comment from the White House.

 

In a speech at an opposition group event near Paris in July, Bolton expressed hope that Iran's government would be toppled "by 2019".

 

Mujahideen-e Khalq, which earlier had bases in Iraq since the 1980s, began as a group of Islamist leftists opposed to Iran’s late Shah but fell out with Shi’ite Muslim clerics who took power after the 1979 revolution.

 

It was one of the largest factions immediately after the revolution. But diplomats and analysts say it is difficult to determine the level of support for the group now inside Iran, where many Iranians cannot forgive it for siding with Saddam Hussein during Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s.

 

The U.S. government designated the group a "terrorist" organisation in 1997, but the designation was lifted in 2012. Members have been interned in camps in Iraq in recent years awaiting resettlement.

 

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom, additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Jim Oliphant in Washington; editing by Kevin Liffey and Grant McCool)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-03-26

Not usually easy to agree with what comes out of Iran but on this occasion they got it dead right.

Bolton's appointment will do absolutely nothing for world peace with his warmongering language.

8 hours ago, webfact said:

the designation was lifted in 2012.

Delisting of the Mujahedin-e Khalq

https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/266607.htm

By delisting the MEK the US will lose a useless bogeyman, but gain a redundant anti-Iran propaganda machine. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/16/mujahedin-e-khalq-terrorist-list

Iran, I remember them from the Carter administration. I also remember them from when Reagan got elected. I think Bolton is more Reaganistic than Carteristic. I am pleaed with the Iranians position on Bolton.

Is this a close relative of Trump?  They seem to think alike, so just assuming.

 

1 hour ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

Is this a close relative of Trump?  They seem to think alike, so just assuming.

 

No, I don't think Trump and Bolton are really alike.   Bolton is a hawk, and a military response to most situations is sort of his default position.   Trump has no default position.   He has whims of the moment.   They don't even last a full day sometimes.   

 

Bolton is predictable.   Trump is not.