Former Trump National Security Adviser-turned-MAGA-critic John Bolton offered President Donald Trump a bit of praise on Sunday for his newly-imposed naval blockade on ships entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz.

“A blockade makes sense, you don’t have to attack Kharg Island. I don’t think that was ever realistic,” Bolton said during an appearance on Bloomberg News. “The point is, if no Gulf oil gets out, no Iranian oil gets out. Let’s see how they feel about that in Tehran.”

Bolton shared his take a few hours after the president announced the blockade on Truth Social.

Here was part of the president’s lengthy post on the decision:

At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them. THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.

I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!

Bolton’s thumbs up for the blockade stands out, considering him and Trump aren’t on the best of terms. The FBI raided his home last year, and Bolton said in his memoir that Trump was “unfit” to be commander-in-chief.

The rest of his analysis on Sunday wasn’t as kind to the Trump Administration over the Iran war. He called Vice President JD Vance’s marathon negotiating session with Iranian officials this weekend in Pakistan a “failure,” and he said Trump’s two-week ceasefire was a “mistake.”

“The only way to get true peace and security in the Middle East is to have regime change in Iran,” Bolton said. “You can negotiate all you want with these people, it’s not going to change anything.”

He also criticized the president for moves he made leading up to the blockade. Bolton said:

Part of the problem here was caused by Donald Trump a few weeks ago lifting American sanctions on Iranian oil. I think he was motivated by fear of rising international oil prices and he thought a few tankers might get the price down. I don’t think that’s correct, I think that’s insignificant.

But what he was doing was allowing Iran to ship oil — not the Gulf Arabs — but Iran, presumably to get paid to gain resources to use in their military to kill Americans. Financing the war against us. That never made any sense and he should reimpose the sanctions.

Watch above via Blooomberg Podcast’s YouTube channel.

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