Cool Bunny

“It really depends on how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy, If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us.  If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us.”   George W. Bush

“[A] modern Republican foreign policy emphasizes building and sustaining coalitions and alliances.  Effective coalition leadership requires clear-eyed judgments about priorities, an appreciation of others’ interests, constant consultation among partners, and a willingness to compromise on some points but to remain focused on core objectives.”   Robert B. Zoellick, “A Republican Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2000.


Sending John Bolton to represent this nation in the United Nations is hardly in keeping with the sentiments expressed above.....and once again demonstrates this administration’s overall contempt for the rest of the world.   Mr. Bolton cannot under the best of circumstances be described as “humble,”   The word arrogant, however, has been used often by people on all sides of the partisan divide.  And his long-standing disdain for that organization isn’t going to contribute toward needed reform.  More likely it will simply alienate the United States further, while raising the level of invective within the organization towards levels similar to our own domestic partisan nastiness.    But the president doesn’t much care whether the rest of the world resents us, only that they fear us.    Bolton’s role is to be an attack dog and to carry the administration’s fear-mongering on to the international stage.   He was not chosen to be diplomatic.

As far as more recent promises to mend fences with our international partners go, the Bolton nomination sends a completely different signal.  Bolton is a man with a reputation for bullying, rudely ignoring other people’s interests and concerns, prioritizing only his personal alarmist agenda (which just happens to coincide with the alarmist interventionist agendas of the administration), dismissive of respectful consultation, antagonistic toward information that fails to support his views, and disdainful of compromise.   He has exhibited a consistent pattern of attempting to push assessments that go far beyond what the broader intelligence community is prepared to support, then trying to bully analysts into conforming with his preferred positions.....seeking to have them removed or demoted when they fail to do so.

Mr. Bolton has been a major obstacle to progress in the effort to cope with the North Korean nuclear threat.   His kind of name-calling is designed to inhibit and prevent negotiations, not to bring opponents to the table.  His alarmist claims about Cuba were completely unsupported by the intelligence community, but he made them anyway despite warnings that they could not be supported.   In the case of Libya, a success that the US and British can well be proud of, progress only occurred when Mr. Bolton was removed from further participation.....at the explicit request of the British government, who credibly argued that he was the cause of deadlocked negotiations and was preventing progress.

Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice’s promise that Mr. Bolton would be carefully monitored and restrained from Washington is hardly reassuring.  Why, as even Republican critics have asked, would we want to send someone to represent us before the world who had to be kept on a short leash, constantly watched, with every word he utters vetted in advance?   More likely, this is yet another example of the administration saying one thing to pacify and defuse criticism, while intending something quite different.

It’s not hard to imagine what Mr. Bolton’s role will be in the UN.    It will be to grandstand, to insult, and to dismiss out of hand criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign adventurism.   More important, unlike former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was understandably reluctant to go on the world stage pushing questionable and at best vague intelligence on WMD, Mr. Bolton can be trusted to step up to the podium and deliver claims that are extreme, alarmist, and do not depend on intelligence.   It has been his pattern in the past, there is little reason to expect that he will change once he sits down in New York......and little reason to think this administration, with its proven history of willfully distorting and cherry-picking intelligence to suit their agenda, will prevent him from doing so.   Mr. Bolton, after all, is being rewarded for his past behavior, which clearly suggests that the administration has no problem with it.

The Bush administration, for all it’s public relations glad handing and promises of humility, has no serious interest in strengthening multilateral relationships, or in working with the United Nations.  All they want from the U.N. is a rubber stamp for their desired policies, whether it be sanctions against Iran or pre-emptive warfare.   Mr. Bolton isn’t going there to work together with the other members, he is going there to bully them into submission, and to launch pit-bull attacks when they fail to satisfy this administration’s demands.

dtf