THE NEW AGE OF DISARMAMENT WARS
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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