U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser on Thursday unveiled the administration's long-awaited counterterrorism strategy, delivering it with harsh words for Iran.
Calling Iran the "world's central banker of international terrorism since 1979," John Bolton said the strategy will rely on traditional military action to fight terrorists, but also seek increased emphasis on nonmilitary means to battle not only Islamic State terrorists but those backed by Iran and other groups.
"We recognize that there's a terrorist ideology that we're confronting, and I think it's long been the president's view that without recognizing that we're in an ideological struggle, we can't properly address the terrorist threat," Bolton said.
In line with the Trump administration's "America First" policy, the strategy also calls for sharing the burden and expense of fighting terrorism with allies.
"The strategy also places greater emphasis on protecting the homeland, preventing attacks, and mitigating the impact of an attack, should one occur," Bolton said.
This is the first U.S. strategy on counterterrorism since Trump's predecessor, President Barack Obama, issued his strategy in 2011, but it has similar themes to those compiled by previous administrations.
The strategy's goals are far-reaching: Pursue terrorists all the way to the source of their support, modernize counterterrorism tools, counter radicalization, protect U.S. infrastructure, strengthen borders and restrict terrorist group's online recruitment.
Bolton said radical extremists represent a "pre-eminent transnational terrorist threat" to the U.S. and its interests abroad. He asserted that the new strategy is broader than those that preceded it.
"We're looking at all of the threatening ideologies that we face, including not just Sunni ideologies" espoused by ISIS militants, but "Iran-sponsored terrorist groups, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad," Bolton said.
He noted that the U.S. Treasury Department issued sanctions earlier Thursday to disrupt Hezbollah's financial support networks.
Having been bitter foes since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Washington and Tehran have been increasingly at odds since Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear accord in May and began to reintroduce economic sanctions on Iran.
The U.S. plans to impose new sanctions targeting Iran's oil sector on Nov. 4. Bolton said the administration aims to compel all importers of Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases to zero.
"It's our objective that there be no waivers from the sanctions that exports of Iranian oil and gas and condensates drops to zero. I'm not saying we're necessarily going to achieve that but no one should be operating under any illusions," Bolton said.
Bolton is a hawk on Iran and believes the reimposition of sanctions is already heaping pressure on Iran's leaders.
