Defense

John Bolton: US ‘hasn’t finished the job’ in Iran

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by Tara Suter - 05/03/26 3:33 PM ET

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by Tara Suter - 05/03/26 3:33 PM ET

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Former White House national security adviser John Bolton said Sunday that the U.S. “hasn’t finished the job” in the conflict against Iran, which just recently passed the two-month mark.

“Well, it’s anybody’s guess at this point, I think the United States holds a great advantage here, but it hasn’t finished the job that was started,” Bolton told NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt on “The Hill Sunday.”

“My definition of finishing the job is ousting the regime in Tehran, but there are steps less than that that [President] Trump could take, and I’m a little surprised that he hasn’t done it,” he added.

On Thursday, Trump said he was not satisfied with the standing at the time between the U.S. and Iran amid halted nuclear deal talks between the two countries.

“We’ve already won, but I want to win by a bigger margin,” Trump told Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren.

“We’ve destroyed everything. If we leave right now, it will take them 20 years to rebuild, if they ever could rebuild, but it’s actually not good enough,” he added. “We have to have guarantees they will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Tehran has said it was reviewing the U.S. response to its latest proposal to end the war, making it clear these were not nuclear negotiations.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, a cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz said it was attacked by multiple small craft, according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, marking at least two dozen attacks in the area since the start of the Iran conflict.

In a recent poll, a majority of Americans thought the U.S. military’s use of force against Iran was a mistake. Per The Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos survey, 61 percent of American respondents said they thought the Trump administration did the wrong thing in starting its military operation in Iran a few months ago.

Throughout the conflict against Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the oil industry, has been closed. According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is now about $4.45, up from $3.17 a year ago.

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