Former ambassador John Bolton's boldly blunt assessment that only bombing Iran first will stop it from building its own nuclear weapon is going viral.

Bolton's op-ed commentary in Thursday's New York Times was among the most-emailed pieces in 24 hours, according to the newspaper's accounting.

"The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program," Bolton wrote. "Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure."

The "inconvenient truth," he insisted, is that "only military action like Israel's 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed."

Bolton's call to action has been shared 2,500 times by Newsmax readers, and retweeted nearly 60 times.

Negotiators are trying to meet an end-of-March deadline to hammer out an outline of an agreement that would grant Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. The deadline for a final agreement is June 30.

Related Stories:

• 'Shock and Awe' Inventor: Bolton's Bomb-Iran Idea a Bad Iraq Sequel
  
• Lindsey Graham: Iran Nuke Deal Will Push Region to Armageddon