Ex-US ambassador Bolton: Obama trying to rid Israel of nukes

"Nuke-free-ME" is targeted specifically at Israel.

By BEN HARTMAN
John Bolton glasses 311 (photo credit: AP)
John Bolton glasses 311
(photo credit: AP)
Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton on Tuesday expressed concern over what he says is pressure being exerted by President Barack Obama on Israel to rid the country of nuclear weapons.
“Egypt and the Obama administration are negotiating right now on an Egyptian proposal for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, which certainly sounds good, except when you think about it, there is only one country that resolution is targeted at and that is Israel,” Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, told Army Radio.
“When I was in the Bush administration we refused to even talk about these kinds of ideas,” he said. “I’d be quite worried about the possible outcome there.”
“The president is not happy with Israel’s nuclear capabilities. I think he would be delighted if Israel gave up its nuclear weapons,” Bolton asserted. “The only unknown answer at this point is exactly how much pressure he would exert on Israel to do just that. Part of that pressure is being exerted right now, by even considering the possibility of a conference on a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East.”
I
srael is widely believed to have a stockpile of nuclear weapons, butthe government maintains a policy of ambiguity on the issue.
Bolton also expressed dismay at the fact that the UN hosted IranianPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at its Nuclear Non-Proliferation TreatyReview Conference on Monday, but said that it was business as usual.
“This is nothing exceptional for the UN, this is the way the UN is dayin and day out,” Bolton told the radio station. “This is not someisolated problem we could fix with the UN by banning the likes ofAhmadinejad, this is the way the organization works.
“The only good thing I could say about it is that he [Ahmadinejad]typically says such ridiculous things that I’m not sure he doesn’t posemore problems for his own position by coming than by not coming,”Bolton said.