BERLIN — U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision on whether to join Israel and begin bombing Iran appears driven more by impulse and affirmation than by deliberate policy, warned former national security adviser John Bolton.

“Trump’s pattern is that he talks to a lot of different people until he hears somebody who agrees with what his predisposition already is,” Bolton told POLITICO on Wednesday. “His rhetoric seems to be moving toward a more direct U.S. involvement.”

Israel began bombing nuclear sites and other targets in Iran last Thursday.

Although Bolton left the first Trump administration in 2019 and is now one of the president’s more prominent conservative critics, he insisted Trump’s decision-making process remains unchanged.

Bolton said Trump is most influenced over Iran by voices urging escalation.

“Perhaps many in Europe don’t understand — in the U.S., the most pro-Israel community is the evangelical Christians, which were a strong part of Trump’s base,” he said. “That was very evident during his first term, and I think you’re seeing that in the second term.”

He pointed to the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, as someone who “has wanted very strongly to support the Israelis to get more involved.”

The drive to war is alienating Trump’s more isolationist MAGA supporters, and the president is also cutting himself off from assessments questioning the nature of the threat posed by Iran.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified before the U.S. Congress in March that the intelligence community continued to assess Iran was not actively pursuing nuclear weapons. But when reminded of that comment earlier this week, Trump brushed it aside: “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.”

The result, Bolton warned, is a policy built more on personal instinct than informed debate: “He can either make well-informed decisions or he can rely on neuron flashes, which is what Trump does.”

NATO risk

That same logic, Bolton argued, applies to Trump’s NATO policy. That’s a key issue ahead of an alliance leaders’ summit in The Hague next week, where NATO is expected to set a new target of 5 percent of GDP for defense spending.

European allies are worried about Trump’s increasingly pro-Russia position on the war in Ukraine and his wavering commitment to a continued U.S. presence in NATO.

“The problem with Ukraine, obviously, will be the center of the discussion,” Bolton said. “And that will tell us a lot about whether the potential for Trump withdrawing from NATO really remains on his mind, which I think is a great risk.”

Bolton described a divided Trump team where isolationists — like Vice President JD Vance — and hawks compete to steer the president. “He’s consciously surrounded himself … with people who will say, ‘yes, sir.’ It’s not people who are going to debate in front of him.”

He backed Trump’s call for allies to boost defense spending, but dismissed NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s proposal to split the 5 percent of GDP total between 3.5 percent for defense and 1.5 percent for infrastructure.

“Defense means defense,” Bolton said. “Good roads aren’t going to stop the Russians.”

If 5 percent isn’t realistic, he added, “let’s just call it 3.5 percent and meet those targets, as opposed to what happened after 2014 when people said 2 percent and then ignored it.”