John Bolton calls Iran ceasefire a ‘mistake’

Former national security adviser John Bolton said the two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was a “mistake” as it gave Tehran time to prepare for a continued war.

“I think it was a mistake to have the ceasefire,” Bolton said on CNN on Sunday. “They‘ve got now a two-week breather where they‘re doing what they can to recover, regroup, get ready for the next phase of the war. We never should have let up on them.”

He later added: “I don’t think the president’s making geostrategic decisions, I think he’s making domestic, political decisions.”

In less than two days the two-week ceasefire between the U.S., Israel and Iran will expire, with Washington racing to shore up a peace deal with Iran.

The tenuous ceasefire began with Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz and submitting a 10-point peace deal to the U.S., but Tehran shut down the strait again due to Israel’s barrage of attacks on Lebanon and Washington’s blockade on the waterway. 

Vice President Vance, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, are set to travel to Islamabad on Monday for a second round of peace negotiations with Iranian officials. But Iran says it has “no plans for the next round” of negotiations due to the U.S. blockade on the strait and the seizure of an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday.

Trump has threatened that the U.S. will resume attacks on Iran if there is no agreement, making prospects for peace look unlikely.

The president told the New York Post that the U.S. is “loading up the ships with the best weapons ever made, even at a higher level than we use to do a complete decimation.”

The U.S. Navy has directed 27 vessels to turn around or return to an Iranian port since the Trump administration’s naval blockade went into effect last week, the U.S. Central Command said in an update on Monday.

Bolton also criticized the Trump administration for sending Vance, Witkoff and Kushner to negotiations, saying Secretary of Marco Rubio should be sent instead of the vice president and “civilian volunteers.”

“I think they smell panic in the White House,” Bolton said of Iran. “I think they can see Trump wants out of this, he’s broadcasting it almost everyday, and it gives the Iranians enormous leverage they shouldn’t have.”

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