John Bolton, White House national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, wrote in The Washington Post that the wars in Iran and Ukraine have never been separate conflicts. He was responding to President Donald Trump's latest reversal on Iran, made less than 36 hours after reports of imminent new strikes, when Trump instead announced the limits of a deal with Iran.
Bolton said an eye-for-an-eye approach is not a strategy. He cited Ukraine's attack on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea, which Ukrainian forces believed was carrying military equipment. This did not mean the Ukraine and Middle East wars were merging into catastrophic open war across Eurasia and the Middle East, he said, but Washington needs serious strategic analysis, something he doubted was a specialty of Trump's team.
Beijing-Moscow axis
Bolton pointed to the emerging Beijing-Moscow axis, the partnership without limits between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Tehran has supplied Moscow with drones and military equipment for years, he said, and the Kremlin has reciprocated with military intelligence against US forces, as has China, while North Korea supplies Russia troops and weapons. Asian tensions should also shape US decisions on both wars, he said: Russia is an East Asian state, and China threatens Taiwan and Japan in the East China Sea, claims most of the South China Sea as its own, and shows hidden hostility along its borders with India and Vietnam.
Bolton's recommendations
He said Washington should focus on destroying or paralyzing Tehran's regime, deterring Russia in Ukraine, and sharply increasing deterrence of China. Bolton urged faster licensing of Patriot air defense technology for Ukraine, more economic pressure on Russia, and no reduction in the US presence in NATO, aiming to keep Russian oil out of world markets by raising Gulf oil exports closer to pre-war levels.
Bolton called Ukraine Europe's largest military power and said Russia has little chance of achieving what it has failed to in over four years of fighting. Trump is unlikely to secure Ukraine a victory over Russia, he added, so the front should at least be stabilized. Separately, Thomas Graham, a Russia expert under President George W. Bush, has written that Trump now has a real chance to broker peace in Ukraine, though the opportunity could close quickly.
