More great understatement out of the State Dept.

"Bolton has long been an advocate of muscular diplomacy."
In other words, dropping bombs on people until they do want you want.
No, no, not Michael Bolton, the singer, this is John Bolton, the guy who used to be Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation during the early years of the Bush administration, until he pissed off the wrong people and didn't get confirmed by the Senate.

"It’s a classic case study of why diplomacy is not cost-free. If we had been working on regime change effectively over the last four or more years we would be in a lot different position today."
"It’s not just the nuclear program. It’s Iran’s support for terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gaza strip, including their activity particularly against our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. So if steps are not taken soon, Iran and other nations in the region will draw the conclusion that we are not serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program, we are not serious about stopping Iranian support for terrorism and they will draw the appropriate conclusions, all of which will be negative to American interest."
"I personally do not believe in just in-time non-proliferation. There’s too much of a risk there that intelligence and analysis can be wrong by understating the threat as well as by overstating the threat. Moreover the Iranians are obviously aware of the risk they run and I think every day that goes by gives them more of an opportunity to harden their existing facilities such as at Natanz, the uranium enrichment facility, or to build completely alternative facilities of which we have no knowledge. Our lack of reliable intelligence inside Iran is substantial. That doesn’t make me feel better; it makes me more nervous. Time is working against us. Every day the military option is postponed makes it riskier that we will actually use force but fail to achieve our objectives."
"I think this facility [in Syria] that the Israelis bombed on September 6 is an indication of yet another alternative, which is either to clone the Yongbyon reactor or outsource some of the nuclear weapons program. How better to hide your North Korean program than to build it in Syria where nobody is looking!"

Rico says and here I was wondering why the Syrians had this whole nuclear site going, and why the Israelis bombed it. Seems they're carrying our water for us again...