It certainly would make the GOP nomination battle more interesting if Ambassador Bolton were to decide to run. He would do so in order to bring foreign policy and national security to the fore as issues.

One question: If he and Sarah Palin run, who would the media hate more?

Bolton, who would seek the Republican nomination should he run, rejected the idea that sanctions could eventually affect Iran's nuclear ambitions as some in the US and even Israel have suggested.

"The most likely outcome with respect to Iran is that it gets nuclear weapons and very, very soon," he said. "Given that diplomacy has failed, given that sanctions have failed, the only alternative to an Iran with nuclear weapons is a limited military strike against the nuclear weapons program."

Though he said he doesn't prefer such action, he believes it's better than the alternatives. And he dismissed the argument that a focused strike would cause regional instability, pointing to Wikileaks' dissemination of diplomatic cables this week showing Arab support for an attack.

"A preemptive military strike against Iran's nuclear program would not cause chaos in the Middle East because the Arab states don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons any more than Israel does," he said.

"I think the entire model of the two-state solution has failed," he declared. "There's nobody on the Palestinian side that you can trust who will make the hard commitments necessary to achieve peace or who will be able to carry them out into the future."

Instead, he proposed a "three-state solution" which would include the admittedly unpopular moves of returning Gaza to Egypt and the Palestinian areas of the West Bank back to Jordan.