annie88 said:

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No. Bolton is not right.

This isn't even hard.

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So the meme above about Bolton's stiffness is fake news?

Appears the situation is flaccid and he's nothing but a wet noodle.

flown-the-coop said:

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annie88 said:

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No. Bolton is not right.

This isn't even hard.

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So the meme above about Bolton's stiffness is fake news?

Appears the situation is flaccid and he's nothing but a wet noodle.

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The question: Was John Bolton right after all?

I answered.

Again, this isn't even hard.

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then. Bolton was right that the only way to fix Iran and stop the constant mayhem in the Middle East was to take the Mullahs and their henchman down. Best way to go about it is a different story.

coconutED said:

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What’s clear from the Maduro raid and today’s strikes is that forever wars were a choice.

— Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeaceful) February 28, 2026

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This is a good point.

We have changed our strategy when it comes to war.

Whereas before, we would destroy the other countries' army and demand surrender.

Now, it seems like we are only interested in taking out rally bad dictators. Our strategy is just to cut the head off the snake.

I'm not sure if our special forces had the intelligence or technology to pull this type of thing off in 2002 with Saddam, but imagine if that was what our strategy was. Just kill Saddam and a few generals and leave a vacuum. I'm not sure that Iraq would be very different than the way it is now if that would have been our mission, and we would have saved a lot of lives and money.

The new strategy has the risk of putting our POTUS in more danger of retaliatory assassinations. But, in realty, I'm not sure that this event is more likely than if Trump didn't have that strategy. I think that if the Mullahs could take down POTUS via assassination, they would.

For some reason, for better or worse, the man appears to be protected by God.

Teslag said:

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Michael Bolton > John Bolton

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When a man loves.....an invasion.

Rapier108 said:

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Bolton would want a full scale invasion and occupation.

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Objection, assumes facts not in evidence, despite making situational isolationists all tingly.

It's almost like Trump was playing 4d chess by taking out Maduro and then attacking Iran.

There were two problems: Iran had figured out that mass production of vast numbers of relatively cheap long range missiles and drones would be able to overwhelm any high tech missile defense and effectively restore a regional threat capability that would have secured the regime from this type of external threat within a few years, even with conventional warheads. A nuclear threat and a true ICBM would have been icing on the cake

The clock was ticking and the Iranian leadership was obviously stalling for time while building towards this strategic threat. Trump gave them ways out of they were willing to play ball and cease their build program to become an active threat to their neighbors that would be able to continue global terrorism and political destabilization at will.

Bolton was right about the threat, but his preferred type of solutions were absolutely wrong. Any kind of ground war and forcible regime change would create enemies instead of allies.

BusterAg said:

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Teslag said:

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Michael Bolton > John Bolton

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Michael Bolton WAS better than John Bolton.

Until that no talent a** clown started winning Grammys

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Nice reference to

RWC

This current conflict is less than a week old, but assuming the replacement of the Iranian regime with own that is more influenced by the US, then in a matter of months the US has flipped the "security" of ~20% of China's crude supply from just Iran and Venezuela. In that scenario, any PRC move against Taiwan doesn't require the US to go duke it out in the first island chain, but at our convenience turn off the flow at the source. Effectively the only non-interdictable supplies would come from Russia.

For better or worse this is again showing other nations that they can... fire ballistic missiles against the US and its allies ... but that the results have yet to be decisive while consequences are very severe. Still there are clearly gaps in the defense and it takes weeks to position all of the assets. Maybe down the road golden dome projects will pair laser point defense with air deployable nuclear reactors and close some of those gaps. A surprise massed first strike is still a very real threat.

LOL. So Bolton was an idiot when Trump was opposed to what Bolton wanted to do.
Now Bolton is good because Trump is dropping bombs.

Got it.