Bolton Is Still Unfit to Serve

This Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings on the nomination of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. Bolton was nominated to the post last year by President Bush but failed to win Senate confirmation after a series of problematic disclosures about his past, particularly a record of mishandling intelligence and a pattern of intimidating subordinates.

The timing of this week's hearings is no accident. The White House is attempting to rally support for the Bolton nomination by politicizing the escalating conflict in the Middle East, arguing that this moment of geopolitical peril requires a permanent representative at the U.N. But the truth is that Bolton's record over the past year has highlighted the desire of an individual who was sent to the U.N. not to make it stronger, but to undermine it. Bolton is no more worthy for the U.N. post now than he was a year ago.

Un-Diplomatic

Bolton has managed to offend many U.S. friends and allies in just over a year at the U.N. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) said, "Bolton's performance at the U.N. confirms my conviction that he is the wrong person for this job." Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) added, "Many ambassadors at the U.N. feel that he hasn't done a good job there. He's polarized the situation." Prior to being appointed to the U.N., Bolton was described by a former State Department colleague as "a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy." Representatives of the U.N. member-states now appear to agree.

The New York Times reported that "many diplomats say they see Mr. Bolton as a stand-in for the arrogance of the administration itself." Edward Luck, a professor of international affairs at Columbia who closely follows the United Nations, said Bolton's "confrontational tactics have been very dysfunctional for the U.S. purpose." After a confrontation with Bolton, Algeria's U.N. Ambassador Abdullah Baali said the U.S. stance that "you take it or you leave it is not helping the Security Council, and is not helping the cause of peace in the Middle East."

An ambassador with close ties to the Bush administration told the Times that he originally tried to work with Bolton, but complained that, "all he gives us in return is, 'It doesn't matter, whatever you do is insufficient.' … He's lost me as an ally now, and that's what many other ambassadors who consider themselves friends of the U.S. are saying." "He is not an easy man to get close to," Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis of Greece said. "Some people have the possibility to build consensus. Others operate in other ways." Ambassador Oswaldo de Rivero of Peru said, "He lives in another world, with this belief that he is morally superior and the U.S. is more moral than all the countries around the world. It is a pity."

Undermining the U.N.

On many of the key issues before the U.N., Bolton has worked against the consensus of the international body. In March, the U.N. overwhelmingly approved the creation of a much-improved council to protect human rights. While the measure gained the support of 170 nations, the U.S. was one of only four nations to vote against it.

"The U.S. position ruffled feathers at the United Nations. Jan Eliasson, president of the General Assembly, had delayed the creation of the council for weeks in an effort to persuade the United States to support it." Mark Malloch Brown, deputy to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said when the "U.S. chose to stay on the sidelines, the loss was everybody's [PDF]."

Bolton also distanced the U.S. from its allies on the issue of Sudan. He insisted that a list of names proffered by the U.K. of individuals involved in genocide be whittled down, leaving only one mid-level Sudanese government official on the list. Bolton's actions were "responsible for failing to hold any senior member of the Sudanese regime accountable for their role in the genocide."