Donald Trump is 'palpably desperate' to secure an Iran deal and is being strung along by Tehran as a result, former national security adviser John Bolton said in a televised interview in Washington on Monday.

After weeks of on‑off peace talks between the United States and Iran, centred on efforts to calm tensions in the Gulf and prevent a wider conflict, Trump has repeatedly hinted on his social media platform that he is negotiating a new agreement, one he claims would be tougher than Barack Obama's 2015nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That accord sharply curtailed Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief before expiring last year, leaving a vacuum that both Washington and Tehran have been trying to fill on their own terms.

Speaking on CNN'sThe Lead, Bolton, 77, offered a scathing assessment of Trump's approach to Iran, arguing the President was treating a revolutionary regime as if it were just another business counterpart.

'I don't think the president understands the fanaticism of what's left of the regime and the people who are in power,' Bolton said. In his view, Trump's lifetime spent negotiating deals in the private sector has led him to assume that 'everybody wants to make a deal on just about anything.'

Bolton, a longstanding hawk who advocates what he calls 'peace through strength,' suggested Iran's leadership had identified this as a weakness. 'They can see that Trump is so palpably desperate to have a deal that he can declare to be a victory and that lowers prices of gasoline and they're playing him on that,' he told CNN. 'They're stretching him out. They're buying time. All of that works in their advantage.'

Pertinently, Bolton served as Trump's national security adviser until 2019, when he resigned after repeated policy clashes, including over Iran. Trump announced the departure in characteristically blunt fashion on X, then Twitter, saying he had 'disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions' and had asked for Bolton's resignation. Since then, Bolton has become one of the most prominent Republican critics of Trump on television, increasingly framing him as ill‑suited to manage hard‑line adversaries.

On Sunday, Trump used his Truth Social account to boast about the still‑undefined arrangement he says he is pursuing with Tehran. 'If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama, which gave Iran massive amounts of CASH, and a clear and open path to a Nuclear Weapon,' he wrote, insisting, 'Our deal is the exact opposite, but nobody has seen it, or knows what it is. It isn't even fully negotiated yet.'

Bolton was openly dismissive. 'Look, that's all salesmanship by Trump. He doesn't offer any idea of what the substance is,' said Bolton, who previously served as US ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush. He argued that the rhetoric was designed to claim credit in advance rather than to explain any verifiable shift in Iran's behaviour.

Bolton set out a markedly different vision of how Washington should respond to Iranian moves in the Gulf, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply passes and which US officials say has been tightened by Iranian forces.

'The only way to establish deterrence again against Iran trying to close the Strait of Hormuz is to take it away from them militarily, to open up naval traffic on the Arabian side of the Gulf, allow Arab oil out into international markets while keeping the blockade against Iranian oil,' he said. That, he argued, would keep financial pressure on Tehran while easing global energy markets.

Source: International Business Times UK