LindaC
03-08-2005, 04:49 PM
I have not heard anyone weigh in on this issue yet, so I guess I'll test the waters.
I read two good articles in today's Washington Post re this appointment. The article by Dan Froomkin resonated especially in that I also believe the Bush Administration is on the one hand holding out carrots to Europe, but on the other hand still intends to impost its unilateral will on the rest of the world.
There is also a good article by Susan E. Rice, entitled, "Tough Love or Tough Luck", also in today's Washington Post.
Love,
Linda
Cheney's Invisible Hand at Work
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; 11:11 AM
President Bush's idealistic rhetoric about promoting democracy across the globe shows signs that it might actually be working; White House working groups are considering a softer, European-style approach to Iran -- what's a powerful, hawkish vice president to do?
How about: Sic one of your favorite, hard-line proteges on the United Nations?
In case anyone thought Bush's foreign policy was veering from stick to carrot -- and in case anyone thought Vice President Cheney's influence was diminishing -- along comes John R. Bolton's nomination yesterday to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
"I don't do carrots," Bolton once said.
While Bush is buoyant about how things are going in the Middle East, Washington observers see Cheney's hand at work with the Bolton nomination, sending a clear message: Don't forget the stick -- and don't regret the stick.
A Bolton From the Blue
Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch write in The Washington Post: "President Bush named Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton yesterday as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a surprise choice that would send an outspoken critic of the world body's effectiveness to its inner councils. . . .
"The post requires Senate confirmation, and Democrats immediately signaled they would wage a spirited confirmation battle. Forty-three Democrats voted against his nomination as undersecretary for arms control four years ago; even some Republicans privately expressed dismay at Bolton's elevation yesterday.
"Some U.N. diplomats said they were surprised. European officials said they were puzzled at how the appointment meshed with the administration's recent efforts at consultative diplomacy."
Steven R. Weisman writes in the New York Times: "A top Republican foreign policy official close to the administration said that it was well understood that Mr. Bolton might alienate Europeans, but that Mr. Cheney had pushed for him for the United Nations job. . . .
"Administration officials said his appointment would strengthen efforts to hold the United Nations to effective standards. But the nomination brought expressions of concern from many diplomats speaking on the condition that they not be identified by name or country, many of whom noted that Mr. Bolton had been scathing in his criticism of the United Nations."
Paul Richter writes in the Los Angeles Times: "In more than two decades in government, the 56-year-old Bolton has regularly served up messages that ignored diplomatic niceties. He has unsettled colleagues when he strayed from the administration's position. But he has won powerful admirers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who once said Bolton deserved 'any job he wants' in the Bush administration."
Carla Anne Robbins and Yochi J. Dreazen write in the Wall Street Journal: "At a time when President Bush is trying to repair relations with allies badly strained by the Iraq war, the nomination is a further sign of the power of administration hard-liners and especially of Vice President Dick Cheney, who long has backed Mr. Bolton's career."
James Harding writes in the Financial Times: "The choice of John Bolton as the next US ambassador to the United Nations underlines the growing sense of vindication in the White House and among neo-conservative circles in Washington over the decision to go to war in Iraq."
Timothy M. Phelps writes in Newsday: "Bolton's nomination by President George W. Bush was seen by Democrats and diplomats here as a message to the world that the administration's flamboyant, in-your-face unilateralism has not changed, despite the conciliatory tone of Bush in Europe last month."
First Wave of Opinions
Susan E. Rice writes in an op-ed column in The Washington Post: "President Bush has shocked even his most cynical critics by nominating the combative neoconservative John Bolton to one of our most complex and sensitive diplomatic posts: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations."
Fred Kaplan writes in Slate: "Just as it looked like George W. Bush might be nudging toward multilateralism, he goes and appoints John Bolton as his ambassador to the United Nations. There could be no clearer sign that the contempt for the international organization, which was such a prominent feature of Bush's first term, will extend into his second term with still greater force and eloquence."
The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes: "It is now 60 years since the San Francisco Conference inaugurated the U.N. In that time, U.S. interests have more often been stymied than advanced by our participation. But the U.N. has also been the place where past ambassadors such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick made America's case. We expect Mr. Bolton will carry on in that tradition, and perhaps even rescue the U.N. from itself."
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. writes in the National Review: "Bolton has been one of this country's most thoughtful critics of past U.N. misconduct."
ABC News's The Note writes that "the mega in-your-face pick of John Bolton to be United Nations ambassador is like Bill Clinton making a joint nomination of Joycelyn Elders to be both Secretary of State and Secretary of Health and Human Services."
------------------------------------------------
Tough Love or Tough Luck?
By Susan E. Rice
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; Page A15
President Bush has shocked even his most cynical critics by nominating the combative neoconservative John Bolton to one of our most complex and sensitive diplomatic posts: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton served the past four years as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, though then-Secretary of State Colin Powell initially resisted his appointment.
Powell's successor, Condoleezza Rice, who passed over Bolton for deputy secretary despite strong support for him from Vice President Cheney, put on a brave face yesterday in announcing his appointment to the United Nations. She stressed the administration's commitment to U.N. reform and praised Bolton as a friend of the United Nations who helped repeal the noxious General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.
But as Rice must know, keeping Bolton off her team at State may prove a Pyrrhic victory, if he takes his notoriously abrasive style to New York.
The job of U.N. ambassador is always important and delicate, but arguably never more so than now. The United Nations is facing unprecedented, justified criticism for its role in the oil-for-food scandal and its failure to prevent peacekeepers from sexually exploiting civilians in Congo. Several Republican members of Congress are gunning for Secretary General Kofi Annan's head. In response, Annan is shaking up his management team and reminding the United States how badly it needs the United Nations.
Indeed, the United States is relying on the United Nations to carry out a massive tsunami recovery effort and 17 peacekeeping missions, to support the democratization processes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear program. At the 60th anniversary of its founding, the United Nations has rarely been more relevant or in greater need of reform.
President Bush seems to understand this. In December he pledged three international goals for his second term. "The first great commitment," he said "is to defend our security and spread freedom by building effective multinational and multilateral institutions and supporting effective multilateral action."
Is John Bolton the right man to lead this effort? Having served as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs from 1989 to 1993, Bolton may be deemed qualified, but his record on multilateral issues is alarming. He told the Wall Street Journal that "the happiest moment of his government service" was when the Bush administration renounced the treaty on the International Criminal Court. Bolton led the administration's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, scuttled an important biological weapons protocol and weakened an international agreement to limit small-arms trafficking. On these issues, Bolton's positions at least reflected administration policy.
But Bolton holds many strong views that diverge sharply from current U.S. policy. He described the United Nations as "a great, rusting hulk of a bureaucratic superstructure . . . dealing with issues from the ridiculous to the sublime . . . ." More important, he maintains that the United States has no legal obligation to pay its U.N. dues.
Once a paid consultant to the Taiwanese government, Bolton favors Taiwan's independence and its full U.N. membership -- a dangerous position in light of cross-straits tensions and our efforts to obtain Chinese pressure on North Korea. Will Bolton set aside his support for a Taiwanese U.N. seat while manning the U.S. seat on the Security Council?
Bolton flatly opposes the use of U.N. peacekeepers in civil conflicts, because he does not deem these "threats to international peace and security." By his logic, the United Nations has no business doing peacekeeping in many places where the Bush administration has supported its deployment of forces.
Bolton has testified against U.N. involvement in Congo, an inter-state conflict that has cost 3 million lives. He blasted the United Nations' concept of operations for its Ethiopia-Eritrea operation and rejected the U.N. civil administration missions in Kosovo and East Timor. Will Bolton undergo such a conversion on the road to First Avenue that he can effectively support U.N. peace operations?
Finally, Bolton criticized any " 'right of humanitarian intervention' to justify military operations to prevent ethnic cleansing or potential genocide." One must wonder how forcefully he will work to halt what the administration deems genocide in Darfur.
Rice asserts that Bolton will be an outspoken, effective U.N. ambassador in the vein of Jeane Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. If his appointment serves to bring the United Nations' most rabid critics in Congress to heel, it may have some merit. Bolton could yet surprise his skeptics by giving "tough love" a whole new definition. To do so, he will have to be for the United Nations what Richard Nixon was for China: a hard-liner who effectively forged groundbreaking change. Those of us who believe the United States needs an effective, reformed United Nations can only hope he succeeds.
The writer is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. She was assistant secretary of state from 1997 to 2001.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
I read two good articles in today's Washington Post re this appointment. The article by Dan Froomkin resonated especially in that I also believe the Bush Administration is on the one hand holding out carrots to Europe, but on the other hand still intends to impost its unilateral will on the rest of the world.
There is also a good article by Susan E. Rice, entitled, "Tough Love or Tough Luck", also in today's Washington Post.
Love,
Linda
Cheney's Invisible Hand at Work
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; 11:11 AM
President Bush's idealistic rhetoric about promoting democracy across the globe shows signs that it might actually be working; White House working groups are considering a softer, European-style approach to Iran -- what's a powerful, hawkish vice president to do?
How about: Sic one of your favorite, hard-line proteges on the United Nations?
In case anyone thought Bush's foreign policy was veering from stick to carrot -- and in case anyone thought Vice President Cheney's influence was diminishing -- along comes John R. Bolton's nomination yesterday to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
"I don't do carrots," Bolton once said.
While Bush is buoyant about how things are going in the Middle East, Washington observers see Cheney's hand at work with the Bolton nomination, sending a clear message: Don't forget the stick -- and don't regret the stick.
A Bolton From the Blue
Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch write in The Washington Post: "President Bush named Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton yesterday as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a surprise choice that would send an outspoken critic of the world body's effectiveness to its inner councils. . . .
"The post requires Senate confirmation, and Democrats immediately signaled they would wage a spirited confirmation battle. Forty-three Democrats voted against his nomination as undersecretary for arms control four years ago; even some Republicans privately expressed dismay at Bolton's elevation yesterday.
"Some U.N. diplomats said they were surprised. European officials said they were puzzled at how the appointment meshed with the administration's recent efforts at consultative diplomacy."
Steven R. Weisman writes in the New York Times: "A top Republican foreign policy official close to the administration said that it was well understood that Mr. Bolton might alienate Europeans, but that Mr. Cheney had pushed for him for the United Nations job. . . .
"Administration officials said his appointment would strengthen efforts to hold the United Nations to effective standards. But the nomination brought expressions of concern from many diplomats speaking on the condition that they not be identified by name or country, many of whom noted that Mr. Bolton had been scathing in his criticism of the United Nations."
Paul Richter writes in the Los Angeles Times: "In more than two decades in government, the 56-year-old Bolton has regularly served up messages that ignored diplomatic niceties. He has unsettled colleagues when he strayed from the administration's position. But he has won powerful admirers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who once said Bolton deserved 'any job he wants' in the Bush administration."
Carla Anne Robbins and Yochi J. Dreazen write in the Wall Street Journal: "At a time when President Bush is trying to repair relations with allies badly strained by the Iraq war, the nomination is a further sign of the power of administration hard-liners and especially of Vice President Dick Cheney, who long has backed Mr. Bolton's career."
James Harding writes in the Financial Times: "The choice of John Bolton as the next US ambassador to the United Nations underlines the growing sense of vindication in the White House and among neo-conservative circles in Washington over the decision to go to war in Iraq."
Timothy M. Phelps writes in Newsday: "Bolton's nomination by President George W. Bush was seen by Democrats and diplomats here as a message to the world that the administration's flamboyant, in-your-face unilateralism has not changed, despite the conciliatory tone of Bush in Europe last month."
First Wave of Opinions
Susan E. Rice writes in an op-ed column in The Washington Post: "President Bush has shocked even his most cynical critics by nominating the combative neoconservative John Bolton to one of our most complex and sensitive diplomatic posts: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations."
Fred Kaplan writes in Slate: "Just as it looked like George W. Bush might be nudging toward multilateralism, he goes and appoints John Bolton as his ambassador to the United Nations. There could be no clearer sign that the contempt for the international organization, which was such a prominent feature of Bush's first term, will extend into his second term with still greater force and eloquence."
The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes: "It is now 60 years since the San Francisco Conference inaugurated the U.N. In that time, U.S. interests have more often been stymied than advanced by our participation. But the U.N. has also been the place where past ambassadors such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick made America's case. We expect Mr. Bolton will carry on in that tradition, and perhaps even rescue the U.N. from itself."
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. writes in the National Review: "Bolton has been one of this country's most thoughtful critics of past U.N. misconduct."
ABC News's The Note writes that "the mega in-your-face pick of John Bolton to be United Nations ambassador is like Bill Clinton making a joint nomination of Joycelyn Elders to be both Secretary of State and Secretary of Health and Human Services."
------------------------------------------------
Tough Love or Tough Luck?
By Susan E. Rice
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; Page A15
President Bush has shocked even his most cynical critics by nominating the combative neoconservative John Bolton to one of our most complex and sensitive diplomatic posts: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton served the past four years as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, though then-Secretary of State Colin Powell initially resisted his appointment.
Powell's successor, Condoleezza Rice, who passed over Bolton for deputy secretary despite strong support for him from Vice President Cheney, put on a brave face yesterday in announcing his appointment to the United Nations. She stressed the administration's commitment to U.N. reform and praised Bolton as a friend of the United Nations who helped repeal the noxious General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.
But as Rice must know, keeping Bolton off her team at State may prove a Pyrrhic victory, if he takes his notoriously abrasive style to New York.
The job of U.N. ambassador is always important and delicate, but arguably never more so than now. The United Nations is facing unprecedented, justified criticism for its role in the oil-for-food scandal and its failure to prevent peacekeepers from sexually exploiting civilians in Congo. Several Republican members of Congress are gunning for Secretary General Kofi Annan's head. In response, Annan is shaking up his management team and reminding the United States how badly it needs the United Nations.
Indeed, the United States is relying on the United Nations to carry out a massive tsunami recovery effort and 17 peacekeeping missions, to support the democratization processes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear program. At the 60th anniversary of its founding, the United Nations has rarely been more relevant or in greater need of reform.
President Bush seems to understand this. In December he pledged three international goals for his second term. "The first great commitment," he said "is to defend our security and spread freedom by building effective multinational and multilateral institutions and supporting effective multilateral action."
Is John Bolton the right man to lead this effort? Having served as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs from 1989 to 1993, Bolton may be deemed qualified, but his record on multilateral issues is alarming. He told the Wall Street Journal that "the happiest moment of his government service" was when the Bush administration renounced the treaty on the International Criminal Court. Bolton led the administration's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, scuttled an important biological weapons protocol and weakened an international agreement to limit small-arms trafficking. On these issues, Bolton's positions at least reflected administration policy.
But Bolton holds many strong views that diverge sharply from current U.S. policy. He described the United Nations as "a great, rusting hulk of a bureaucratic superstructure . . . dealing with issues from the ridiculous to the sublime . . . ." More important, he maintains that the United States has no legal obligation to pay its U.N. dues.
Once a paid consultant to the Taiwanese government, Bolton favors Taiwan's independence and its full U.N. membership -- a dangerous position in light of cross-straits tensions and our efforts to obtain Chinese pressure on North Korea. Will Bolton set aside his support for a Taiwanese U.N. seat while manning the U.S. seat on the Security Council?
Bolton flatly opposes the use of U.N. peacekeepers in civil conflicts, because he does not deem these "threats to international peace and security." By his logic, the United Nations has no business doing peacekeeping in many places where the Bush administration has supported its deployment of forces.
Bolton has testified against U.N. involvement in Congo, an inter-state conflict that has cost 3 million lives. He blasted the United Nations' concept of operations for its Ethiopia-Eritrea operation and rejected the U.N. civil administration missions in Kosovo and East Timor. Will Bolton undergo such a conversion on the road to First Avenue that he can effectively support U.N. peace operations?
Finally, Bolton criticized any " 'right of humanitarian intervention' to justify military operations to prevent ethnic cleansing or potential genocide." One must wonder how forcefully he will work to halt what the administration deems genocide in Darfur.
Rice asserts that Bolton will be an outspoken, effective U.N. ambassador in the vein of Jeane Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. If his appointment serves to bring the United Nations' most rabid critics in Congress to heel, it may have some merit. Bolton could yet surprise his skeptics by giving "tough love" a whole new definition. To do so, he will have to be for the United Nations what Richard Nixon was for China: a hard-liner who effectively forged groundbreaking change. Those of us who believe the United States needs an effective, reformed United Nations can only hope he succeeds.
The writer is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. She was assistant secretary of state from 1997 to 2001.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company