John
Bolton, United States National Security Advisor in the Donald Trump
administration from 2018 to 2019, is in the news after a former member of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard Corps was charged in a murder-for-hire plot against him. Bolton,
73, thanked officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and
Department of Justice, and the Secret Service for foiling the plot.

“While much
cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable: Iran’s rulers are
liars, terrorists, and enemies of the United States…Their radical,
anti-American objectives are unchanged; their commitments are worthless; and
their global threat is growing,” Bolton said.

Who is John
Bolton?

John Bolton
was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 20, 1948. His father, Edward
Jackson Bolton, was a firefighter and his mother, Virginia Clara, was a
homemaker. Growing up in a working-class neighbourhood, Bolton won a
scholarship to study at the prestigious McDonogh School in Owings Mills,
Maryland.

He went on
to join Yale University, finishing his bachelor’s degree with a summa cum
laude in 1970. Subsequently, Bolton went on to join Yale Law School from
1971 to 1974. A supporter of the Vietnam War, Bolton avoided combat through
student deferment and then got himself enlisted in the Maryland Air National
Guard. The 71-year-old former NSA wrote in his Yale 25th reunion
book: “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I
considered the war in Vietnam already lost.”

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Bolton
later went on to work in the Ronald Reagan and George W Bush administrations.
He went on to become Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security.

Often
described as a ‘foreign policy hawk,’ George W Bush is an advocate for military
action and regime change in Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen and
North Korea. Bolton is a member of the Republican Party and his political views
have often been dubbed as American nationalist.