John Bolton in Jerusalem

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Mon Feb 24 09:20:24 PST 2003


John Bolton in Jerusalem

THE NEW AGE OF DISARMAMENT WARS

____________________________________________________________________

 

FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS

Project Against the Present Danger

Thursday, February 20, 2003

http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/ 0302bolton.html

By Ian Williams

 

Much of the world is worried about the impending war with Iraq, and rightly

so. But this may just the beginning of a new age of disarmament wars.

 


>From the homeland of Armageddon this week came worrying signs that we

should begin worrying about the even longer and harder wars to follow. John

Bolton, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Disarmament Affairs and

International Security, was in Israel this week, for meetings about

"preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction."

 

It seems appropriate for the U.S. and Israel to meet about disarmament

issues. After all, Israel is universally acknowledged by

everyone--excepting the U.S. government--as a considerable nuclear power,

and much of the world regards its prime minister as a profound threat to

international security. However, we can be sure that neither item was on

Bolton's agenda.

 

Bolton-Sharon Style Disarmament

 

While in Israel, Bolton met Sharon and Netanyahu. He promised that after

the U.S. has sorted Iraq "it will be necessary to deal with threats from

Syria, Iran, and North Korea afterwards." For Bolton and Sharon,

disarmament is what you do to other people, no more and no less.

 

Unlike most of his colleagues in Washington, Bolton seems to have kept his

counsel on France and Germany--at least this time. But that should not be

taken as any sign of disagreement with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's spat

with "Old Europe." Previously, Bolton had sounded the alert, warning that

"the Europeans can be sure that America's days as a well-bred doormat for

EU political and military protection are coming to an end."

 

The venue for Bolton's disarmament talks is significant. Although Israel is

agnostic on Kim Jong Il, there is no doubt that the rest of Bolton's

dominoes fall exactly in line with the eschatological plans of the Likudnik

fundamentalists. When they met, Sharon told him that Israel was "concerned

about the security threat posed by Iran" and that it was important to deal

with it even while American attention is turned toward Iraq. Since it was

the Israelis and the Reagan administration that had conspired to provide

weaponry for Iran in the 1980s, we know how strongly and consistently they

feel about this.

 

Indeed, Bolton and Sharon have been as one for some time. Soon after George

W. Bush's discovery of the "Axis of Evil," Bolton promptly fingered Cuba

and Libya as a sort of mini-Axis and as potential possessors of missiles

and weapons of mass destruction. Although Sharon was agnostic this time on

Cuba, he happily endorsed adding Libya to the hit list along with Iran and

Syria.

 

John Bolton is one of the major reasons why few other countries trust the

motives, or indeed the rationality of the U.S. administration (the list of

other reasons keeps growing, but the ravings of Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney,

and Rumsfeld spring immediately to an apprehensive observer's mind).

 

These are the people whose statements scare off the diplomatic ducks that

Colin Powell so assiduously tries to line up. In addition, the continual

gaffes of hawks like Bolton make the U.S. position seem even more

hypocritical in the global arena. For example, the ostensible excuse for

attacking Iraq is its defiance of UN resolutions. However, Bolton has

defied the UN's very existence for most of his political career. He has

made it plain that the U.S. government should not abide by any UN decisions

that may prove inconvenient to the U.S. pursuit of its national interests.

 

Washington's UN Double-Speak

 

Last year as the rest of the world was deciding that Hans Blix, the head of

UNMOVIC, was a trustworthy arbiter, Bolton had the CIA vet him because he

suspected him to be unreliable. One feels sure that he still does, even

though the CIA gave the good Doctor Blix a clean bill of health.

 

However, Bolton is at least consistent. His political career began in

UN-bashing. In 1994 he asserted that "there is no such thing as the United

Nations" or that "if the UN Secretariat building in New York lost 10

stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." Nonetheless, his firm

principles can be malleable when hit by self interest. Taking ten floors

off the 38 of the UN HQ would have left the 27th floor. That's where the UN

finance department issued his pay check when he became James Baker's

assistant in the UN mission to abrogate Security Council resolutions

against the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.

 

It is difficult to square his bashing of the UN with the Bush

administration's blandishing the Security Council members to "save" the

organization, to preserve its credibility and relevance--by doing exactly

what it is told. Perhaps because Bolton was absent from Washington, in

Israel this week, the administration has reluctantly accepted the

desirability for a second UN resolution to authorize war. Certainly, this

is not due to any abstract attachment to principles. Rather, Tony Blair

persuaded Bush that the few allies the U.S. has need such a resolution to

quell their restive electorates.

 

Of course electorates do not always figure well with the White House.

Bolton was foisted on a reluctant Powell by other hardliners in the

administration, not least for his role in chad- counting in Florida before

the Supreme Court appointed Bush.

 

But then he has not always been so keen on the judicial approach. For the

past two years, his single-handed campaign to destroy the effectiveness of

the International Criminal Court (ICC) has done much to cement European and

third world resentment of U.S. "diplomacy" and unity in advance of the Iraq

issue.

 

Indeed, his campaign get bilateral treaties exempting American citizens

from the ICC's jurisdiction precipitated the fissure lines we now see

emerging in the global community. His few successes include the East

Europeans, desperate to get into NATO, as well as the tiny island states,

which are, well, just desperate. Even the role of one less tiny island

state--Britain--foreshadows the role it has played over Iraq. After all, it

was Tony Blair who effectively split united EU resistance to the American

campaign.

 

The Bolton campaign's major diplomatic "success," however, was that his

undiplomatic pressure provoked a record number of countries into signing

and ratifying the Rome Treaty quickly so that the ICC was actually

established several years before its sponsors anticipated. Bolton is to

diplomacy what Jack the Ripper was to surgery.

 

Bearing in mind the Middle East venue for the current combat, Senator Jesse

Helms had endorsed Bolton's appointment with what one hopes was unconscious

irony "John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at

Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be

the final battle between good and evil in this world."

 

Media Silence

 

Almost as amazing as Bolton's statements is the relative silence of the

U.S. media about him and other administration hawks. Shouldn't the American

public know that senior administration officials are promising that after a

war with Iraq, there will be one with Iran, and then one with Syria, with

Libya, with North Korea, and with Cuba? Each of these is a scenario that

could frighten the American public. Taken together, George W. Bush is

threatening to make the Prussian kings look like Pacifists. Do those

Reservists in the Gulf know how long they will be away, making the world

fertile for terrorism?

 

Some argued that you can ignore the likes of Bolton because they are just

token eccentrics--there to appease the right wing of the Republican Party.

Such complacency is ill-grounded. The first two years of Bush foreign

policy--with the promulgation of the Axis of Evil, the campaign against the

ICC, the abrogation of Kyoto, the unlimited support for Ariel Sharon's

behavior, and the gratuitous attacks on long- standing allies who have the

temerity to disagree over Iraq--should warn us to take heed.

 

We do not have to agree with those Bible Study classes in the White House

on prophetic power to prophesy that it would be very dangerous to ignore

Bolton's statements. These are harbingers of endless wars. It's a long,

long way to Teheran, but these hawks are putting their heart into going

there. Or rather, as most of them did in Vietnam, sending others.

 

(Ian Williams, uswarreport at igc.org, contributes frequently to Foreign

Policy In Focus (online at http:// www.fpif.org) on UN and international

affairs.)

 

Copyright © 2003 IRC. All rights reserved.

-- Michael Pugliese

"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to

each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that

we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted

at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy



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