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john bolton
DOJ Charges Iranian Over Alleged Plot to Assassinate John Bolton
Officials have accused Shahram Poursafi of trying to hire a hitman to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a top Iranian general who the U.S. assassinated with a drone strike in 2020.
Aug 10, 2022
The United States Department of Justice has charged an Iranian citizen who it says is a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with attempting to hire an assassin to murder John Bolton, an ex-national security adviser in the Trump administration, multiple outlets reported Wednesday.
According to the Justice Department, Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, offered to pay unnamed individuals $300,000 in November 2021 to "eliminate" Bolton in Washington, D.C. or Maryland.
Federal officials said the assassination of Bolton would have been in retaliation for the U.S. military's January 2020 drone strike killing of Qasem Soleimani--a top commander in the IRGC, which is a branch of Iran's military--in Iraq.
"Poursafi is alleged to have said that after Bolton was killed, there would be another job, for which the hitman would be paid $1 million," The Guardianreported. "The person offered the money became an FBI confidential informant, and continued to exchange texts on an encrypted communications app with Poursafi."
The 45-year-old suspect, who the DOJ believes tried to orchestrate the plot from Tehran, remains at large abroad.
"If found and convicted, he would face up to 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000 for the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, and up to 15 years' imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000 for providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot," the Washington Postreported.
As The Guardian noted:
Bolton was no longer national security adviser when the drone strike against Soleimani was carried out as the Iranian general was visiting Baghdad on January 3, 2020, but he is a longtime advocate of military action against Iran and a staunch opponent of the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with Tehran. Secret Service cars have been reported to have been parked across the road from Bolton's house in the Washington area at least since early 2022.
In the immediate wake of Soleimani's assassination, Bolton tweeted, "Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran."
Bolton, who admitted on CNN last month that he has "helped plan coups d'etat" in foreign countries, served as a national security adviser to former President Donald Trump for 17 months, resigning in 2019 over reported disagreements about whether to lift some sanctions against Iran as a negotiating tactic.
"Bolton, who did not want the sanctions lifted, was a main architect of the Trump administration's 'maximum pressure' campaign of escalating economic sanctions and threats of retaliation for Iran's alleged support of terrorism," the Post noted. "The idea was to cripple Iran's economy to the point that its leaders felt they must bargain away any nuclear ambitions and missile technology."
News of the FBI's search for Poursafi comes just two days after negotiators in Vienna said they're close to reviving the Iran nuclear accord that the Trump administration, with no small part played by Bolton, unilaterally tanked.
Before his stint in the Trump White House, Bolton, whom critics have called a "bloodthirsty warmonger," was a major cheerleader for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He served in senior arms control roles and eventually became ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush.
Between the Bush and Trump presidencies, Bolton spent time working at right-wing think tanks, a private equity firm, and as a Fox News contributor.
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John Bolton Speaks Well of the Many US-Backed Coup D'Etats
The neoconservative former diplomat has upset Washington insiders and spies by breaking an omerta about US involvement in regime change.
Jul 16, 2022
Good old John Bolton. The US diplomatic hawk, a veteran of US interventions from the Iran-Contra fiasco to his global troublemaking as national security adviser to Donald Trump, let the cat out of the bag this week.
CNN reporter Jake Tapper used Bolton's vanity about his iniquitous record to coax him into talking about the regime change activities he had been part of during his 17 tumultuous months working for Trump.
January 6 has become a defining event that may prove, at least to those who care, the unutterable evil of Trump and his followers
Tapper riled Bolton by saying, "One doesn't have to be brilliant to attempt a coup."Bolton took the bait, responding: "As somebody who has helped plan coups d'etat, not here, but, you know, other places. It takes a lot of work."Tapper pressed him to say more about "what you need to do to be able to plan a coup, and you--you cited your expertise having planned coups".
Bolton said he wouldn't get into the specifics, before adding, "Well, I wrote about Venezuela in the book, and it turned out not to be successful."This was the US-backed coup attempt against Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro following his disputed election win in 2018. As Bolton admits, that failed (although US sanctions, for which Bolton was an ardent advocate, are still crippling Venezuela's economy).
Bolton was being interviewed about the chaotic and violent assault on the US Capitol on 6 January last year, which is currently the focus of hearings in Congress. Like Russiagate (the hearings that were supposed to prove how Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin, but ended in failure), the 6 January hearings are scrutinising the former president's role in seeking to overturn Biden's victory in 2020. However, Trump is not quite revealed as a would-be Mussolini; instead of disciplined stormtroopers ready to carry out his master plan, he was surrounded by clueless clowns and chancers.
As for serious coup plotters, Bolton is closer to the real deal, although those who actually carry out coups don't give tell-all interviews to CNN. (One of them--CIA clandestine services vet John Sipher - even called out Bolton on Twitter, insisting the US doesn't do coups anymore.)
6 January and other coups
With Biden's administration in disarray ahead of the mid-term elections, 6 January has become a defining event that may prove, at least to those who care, the unutterable evil of Trump and his followers--and boost the Democrats amid the huge disappointment of Biden's presidency.
Of course, when it comes to coups outside of the United States, of which there are too many to mention, the Democrats are not shy at all in helping to organise the storming of government buildings around the world, even against elected democratic leaders.
Washington insiders were predictably furious with Bolton for breaking the omerta of US officialdom, which spends each working day maintaining the narrative of American values of democracy while working just as hard to undermine governments seen to be a threat to US imperial interests.
Evo Morales, the former president of Bolivia, who was overthrown in 2019 by the military, said the remarks showed that the United States was "the worst enemy of democracy and life", The Washington Post reported.
"This is no surprise,"Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. "The admission simply shows that interfering in other countries' internal affairs and overthrowing their governments have become the standard practice of the US government... This is very much part of the US rule book."
Larry Diamond, of the Stanford University-Hoover Institution, berated Bolton's admission: "It's damaging to our efforts to advance and support democracy,"he said. "We have enough trouble already countering Russian and Chinese propaganda."Diamond, as it happens, was a significant player in the overthrow of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, and previously advised the US occupation authority in Iraq following George W Bush's invasion.
Uprising or coup?
One of Diamond's more successful productions was the "I am a Ukrainian" video that went viral during the 2013-14 crisis. It appeared to represent the spirit of young Ukrainians fighting a corrupt regime, but was created by a production company funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (also known as the National Endowment for Regime Change) and led by none other than US State Department adviser Larry Diamond.
US involvement in coups and regime change strategies in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe are not just a Cold War curiosity.
The key US player in the February 2014 uprising in Ukraine was President Barack Obama's Assistant Secretary of State Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland. Thanks to leaked tapes (and the billions of dollars the US funnelled into Ukraine) it is clear that events widely portrayed in western media as a popular uprising were manipulated by the US to bring down Yanukovych and install a nationalist pro-US regime.
In another leaked conversation between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet in March 2014, the latter pointed to ballistic evidence that the snipers in Kyiv who shot and killed more than 80 people from both sides in the critical days of the Maidan clashes were not working for the Yanukovych government, but were part of the far right opposition. The US nevertheless blamed the deposed government, creating a narrative around the events that holds to this day.
Ever since the Iran coup of 1953, the US has finessed a model to overthrow governments which uses local client forces, willing agents on the ground, media management and propaganda, and of course dirty tricks and specialist troops.
Ukraine endgame
Of course, this geopolitical chess game--which was treated as rather amusing by Bolton and his interviewer--had an endgame, and that is the war in Ukraine. Once the new regime in Kyiv, now led by Vlodomyr Zelensky, was installed in 2014, the Donbas region broke away and Russia annexed Crimea. A war broke out in the east, widely blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But the US had unerringly backed those forces in Ukraine who saw a war with Russia as the only way to break free from Moscow and reverse the defeat of Ukrainian pro-Nazi forces in the Second World War. This alliance with far right forces was largely airbrushed once Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year.
US involvement in coups and regime change strategies in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe are not just a Cold War curiosity. Moments of candour such as Bolton's remind us they haven't gone away.
The notion that America stands for democracy and freedom across the world still holds within the bubble of US official discourse, but in the week Joe Biden offers total support to the Israeli occupation regime in Tel Aviv and the Saudi dictatorship in Riyadh, it fools no one.
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John Bolton Admits on Live TV He 'Has Helped Plan Coups D'Etat'
"It's a wild quote because he admits on camera to planning coups while declaring he's brilliant," said Nina Turner. "Apparently not brilliant enough to not admit that on camera!"
Jul 12, 2022
Longtime Republican official John Bolton admitted during a televised interview Tuesday that he has helped plan coups outside of the United States.
Bolton, who served as former President Donald Trump's national security adviser, appeared on CNN to discuss the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
After Bolton claimed that Trump's lies about the 2020 presidential election that provoked last year's Capitol attack were not part of "a carefully planned coup d'etat aimed at the Constitution," host Jake Tapper said that "I don't know that I agree with you, to be fair, with all due respect. One doesn't have to be brilliant to attempt a coup."
Bolton responded that "I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coups d'etat, not here, but, you know, other places, it takes a lot of work. And that's not what he did."
\u201cJake Tapper follows up on John Bolton's past coup planning.\n\nBolton: "I\u2019m not going to get into the specifics, but--"\n\nTapper: "Successful coups?"\n\nBolton brings up the failed Venezuelan coup, prompting Tapper to add: "I feel like there\u2019s other stuff you\u2019re not telling me."\u201d— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1657657834
Tapper followed up on coup comments, and Bolton--who also held roles in the administrations of former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush--initially said that "I'm not gonna get into the specifics."
Bolton then pointed out that in his recently released book, he wrote about the failed effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in 2019. The Trump administration notably backed opposition leader Juan Guaido.
However, as reporters and others--such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)--were quick to highlight, Bolton has a long history of supporting such efforts.
As HuffPostdetailed Tuesday:
In 2004, while Bolton was serving in the State Department, the U.S. faced allegations of backing the overthrow of Haiti's president. A former French ambassador toldThe New York Times this year that the U.S. and France had "effectively orchestrated" the coup.
Bolton has a long history of advocating for coups and supporting regime change plots. He advocated for regime change in Iraq ahead of a war he helped orchestrate and said in 2018 that the United States should overthrow the government of Iran.
Critics of Bolton shared a range of reactions on social media.
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch tweeted that "I've been investigating U.S. imperialism for decades, and...he...just...blurted...it...out."
\u201cIt\u2019s a wild quote because he admits on camera to planning coups while declaring he\u2019s brilliant. \n\nApparently not brilliant enough to not admit that on camera!\u201d— Nina Turner (@Nina Turner) 1657661484
"America in one clip," More Perfect Union's Jordan Zakarinsaid of the interview, describing Bolton as "a bloodthirsty right-wing war hawk" who was given a platform to "brazenly admit to secret war crimes without worrying about any consequences whatsoever."
"It's just a little oopsies, a meme for a few days," Zakarin added, declaring that "this is even more embarrassing for CNN."
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