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| Memorandum to the Press 04.97 |
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Word Count: 2700
Wednesday, 15 December 2004
• With court confidante Condoleezza Rice soon to be at the helm of the State Department, the possible ascension of ultraconservative political appointee John Bolton will stress the Bush administration’s conversion of the agency from a relatively passive and ineffective dissenter under Colin Powell, to an aggressive crusader for the administration’s ideologically-driven foreign policy agenda in the second term.
• In conjunction with new CIA director Porter Goss, who has instructed subordinates to “not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield, Rice and possibly Bolton as the top officials at State, the Bush administration almost certainly will maintain its unilateral and bullying approach to foreign policy making.
• Bolton is ill-suited for the position of Deputy Secretary of State, due to a career characterized by a reflexive animosity for global cooperation, multilateral institutions, alliance building, international law and consensus making.
• Bolton’s constant battering of what he views as the “demonic” forces of the left can only further erode Washington’s deteriorating standing with moderate and more ideological left-of center Latin American governments.
On November
17, 1997, the Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed in which the
author expressed, in unequivocal terms, his intemperate and dismissive attitude
towards Washington’s adherence to multilateral international accords,
writing “treaties are law only for U.S. domestic purposes. In their
international operation, treaties are simply political obligations."
The author of this piece, whose conclusions were widely disputed by individuals
far more knowledgeable on the subject than himself, is current Undersecretary
for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, the man now being
mentioned to replace Richard Armitage as Deputy Secretary of State under Condoleezza
Rice and an unwavering neoconservative ideologue in the most ultra sense of
the word. Ultraright elements in the White House, the Pentagon and Congress
are strongly pushing for Bolton to be nominated, for they see in him the ideal
candidate to help Rice mold the State Department to their profile. Such an
appointment will assure that State officials will harmonize their thrust with
the rest of the Bush administration’s ideologically-driven foreign policy
agenda.
For a government agency whose stated mission is to “create a more secure,
democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and
the international community,” to have as one of its chief policymakers
a man who whose career reads as a what-not-to-do handbook on consensus building
and international diplomacy, would be totally incomprehensible. In fact, it
is nearly unfathomable to imagine a candidate less qualified and more ill-prepared
for the State Department’s second highest-ranking position and dangerous
to long-term U.S. national interests as Bolton. The singularity of the stand
that he has taken over the years on a wide range of issues underlines this
claim. His nomination will signify to the world that Washington believes constructive
engagement is neither required nor desirable for self-serving U.S. objectives
to prevail.
Talk
Forcefully and Carry a Big Stick
Throughout his career in both the public and private sector, John Bolton has
demonstrated a disturbingly constant tendency to disregard facts, as well
as a self-righteous attitude towards achieving selfish and even dangerous
foreign policy goals, always seen through the prism of a U.S. unilateral agenda.
In 2001, at the onset of the Bush administration, Bolton set the tone for
what would turn out to be his unique contribution when he pontificated that,
“It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law
even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so – because,
over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really
means anything are those who want to constrict the United States.”
Accordingly, in an article published in the Winter 1998 issue of the conservative
journal The National Interest, Bolton expanded on his vehement opposition
to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In it, he reasoned that if Washington
were to ratify the accord, it would limit this country’s foreign policy
initiatives, since “the president, the cabinet officers who comprise
the National Security Council, and other senior civilian and military leaders
responsible for our defense and foreign policy,” would become “the
potential targets of the politically unaccountable Prosecutor created in Rome.”
What he failed to consider is that prosecution before the ICC would be reserved
as a last resort to redress blatantly criminal behavior such as genocide;
his words suggest that, according to his view, Washington’s actions
should not be restricted by or put to the test of any notion of international
legality or, for that matter, morality.
In support of his position he goes on to criticize Judge Baltasar Garzón
for having the audacity to attempt to detain and extradite Augusto Pinochet
during a trip that the former Chilean dictator was making to the U.K. The
famed Spanish jurist wanted Pinochet to be brought to Spain to stand trial
for a number of Spanish victims among the estimated 3,000 killings and missing-persons
cases blamed on Pinochet’s rule. According to Bolton, after seventeen
years of military dictatorship, several thousand forced disappearances, institutionalized
torture and politically motivated assassinations under Pinochet, “Chileans
made their choice, and have lived with it.” This type of callous and
uninformed assessment of the situation reflects the type of prescriptive policymaking
Bolton calls for towards the region and indeed the world.
A major component of Bolton’s foreign policy agenda has focused on a
strict advocacy of structural market reforms meant to further enrich multinational
corporations at the expense of efforts aimed at significantly improving basic
living standard in developing countries. His position on the subject is starkly
evident in a June 25, 1995 Op-Ed published in the Washington Times
in which he criticized the Clinton administration for continued funding of
“programs on international population control and environmental matters
rather than fundamental economic policy reforms in developing countries”
and further assailed then Vice-President Al Gore for his “preference
for condoms and trees instead of markets.” These will be the types of
initiatives that are sure to gain credence if Bolton is chosen as the State
Department’s second in command.
In the aforementioned The National Interest article, Bolton also briefly refers
to Washington’s decision to withdraw from the mandatory jurisdiction
of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the predecessor to the ICC. In
1986, the ICJ ruled that the U.S. had violated its obligations not to use
force against and not to violate the sovereignty of another state as a result
of its continued “military and paramilitary operations in and against”
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. Instead of Washington abiding by
the ruling – in other words, accepting responsibility for what was found
to be its criminal behavior – the Reagan administration decided to ignore
the court’s decision. Washington continued to support the Contras’
violent insurgency against a government with which Washington had full diplomatic
relations, until the Sandinistas were democratically defeated (with the U.S.
providing major funding for the opposition) in the country’s 1990 presidential
elections. Bolton refers to the ICJ’s ruling as “erroneous,”
a position that is consistent with his belief that the White House must be
free to act without restriction or fear of reprisal.
As Assistant Attorney General, a position he held from 1985 to 1989, he was
also instrumental in Justice Department efforts to withhold information regarding
the Iran-Contra affair, which included his own personal notes on the scandal,
and aided Congressional Republicans who were hard at work attempting to obstruct
ongoing investigations into alleged Contra drug smuggling. He even went as
far as to call an unauthorized press conference in which he lashed out at
the investigating special prosecutors, leading then White House spokesman
Marlin Fitzwater, acting on behalf of the same government officials Bolton
was defending, to refer to him and his actions as “intemperate and contentious.”
No
Evidence? Just Make it Up
One of Bolton’s most outlandish public charges, but one that is quintessential
of his method of operation, was his May 6, 2002 claim that not only did Cuba
possess “at least a limited offensive biological warfare research development
effort,” but that, indeed, it had provided such technology to “other
rogue states.” Bolton’s career preoccupation with Cuba-bashing
was now aimed at attempting to have the Castro regime included among President
Bush’s infamous Axis of Evil category. In what amounted to little more
than preaching to the choir, Bolton presented his thesis to an audience at
the conservative Heritage Foundation. As it turned out, his charges were so
bereft of any substance or even a tincture of verisimilitude that even his
Bush administration colleagues rushed to disavow any association with them.
In addition to refutations by both Secretary of State Colin Powell (who said
“we didn’t actually say it [Cuba] had some weapons”) and
former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Southern Command Gen. Charles Wilhelm
(who stated he had never received any evidence to support Bolton’s claim
and that he was within the loop for such privileged information), even Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfield indicated to reporters that he was unaware of any
links connecting Cuba’s biomedical industry to bio-weaponry research.
Despite being called upon to do so by several Senators, Bolton refused to
attend a Senate hearing where he could present any evidence of Cuba’s
alleged bioweapons program, a rather telltale admission that he would be unable
to substantiate his charge under sworn testimony. The dearth of any compelling
evidence linking Cuba’s highly lauded pharmaceutical industry to terrorism
was eventually confirmed by a 2004 wide-ranging Congressional investigation
into government intelligence estimates, which peeled away at the last vestiges
of credibility behind Bolton’s assertions.
Career
Highlights
Bolton’s 2002 Cuba charge is emblematic of his contempt for the facts
and his shoot-from-the-hip style for which he has become infamous. In fact,
a scrutiny of Bolton’s professional career reveals why he has become
such a favorite among hardline neoconservatives. Not only are his positions
on a wide range of issues stridently to the right of mainstream opinion –
even by the standards of this administration – he also has shown an
uncontrollable need to engage in hyperbole, and, on more than one occasion,
outright prevarication. Fortunately for his critics, his excesses, coupled
with his possessing perhaps the most radicalized ideological profile in the
senior ranks of the State Department or in indeed perhaps the entire Bush
administration, are predictive of his habitually skewed way of thinking.
At a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association,
for example, he stated “There is no such thing as the United Nations,”
spookily adding “'if the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10
stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.” If anything, Bolton’s
comments regarding the UN may have been born more out of wishful thinking
than anything else, considering that he has always viewed the world body as
an illegitimate and bothersome restraint on what he believes is Washington’s
inviolable right of unilateral action. In a direct attack on the UN’s
ability to restrict the use of force, published in the Weekly Standard
in 1999 under the title Kofi Annan’s UN Power Grab, he reasserted
his scriptural fidelity to unilateralism, writing that if Washington were
to overly legitimize the UN, “its discretion in using force to advance
its national interests is likely to be inhibited in the future."
Bolton’s unqualified attacks on his chosen targets continued in 1999
when, following the Senate defeat of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,
a gloating Bolton characterized supporters of the ban as “misguided
individuals following a timid and neo-pacifist line of thought.” In
2002 he went so far as to directly challenge Washington’s long-standing
pledge to limit a nuclear response only to attacks from a nuclear-armed foe,
calling any such agreement “an unrealistic view of the international
situation.” More recently, Bolton has targeted two prominent and reputable
international figures as part of his vindictive campaign against all those
who oppose the White House’s aggressive unilateral foreign policy agenda.
Both Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, and Hans Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission, had criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq, characterizing it as
premature and unjustified, and consequently Bolton is adamant about their
removal. On December 12, the Washington Post reported that ElBaradei
has earned Bolton’s ire as a result of both his Iraq position as well
as for his commitment to reaching a negotiated settlement regarding Iran nuclear
programs. Bolton has been instrumental in having the CIA and the NSA spy on
both men, hoping to discover evidence that would lead to their removal from
their posts.
Diplomacy:
Just Say No
During a 2001 UN Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons,
Bolton once again came out with all guns blazing, telling delegates that Washington
was opposed to any move to restrict civilian access to weapons or a treaty
that would serve to “abrogat[e] the constitutional right to bear arms.”
This extension of NRA-type thinking into the international sphere effectively
undermines even preliminary attempts to demilitarize such ongoing conflicts
like those now seen in Colombia and the Sudan as well as multilateral efforts
to combat astronomically high rates of gun-related crime in Latin America
and elsewhere by curtailing the illegal shipment of small arms from the U.S.
to the region.
His lack of diplomatic tact was again on display later that year, when he
scuttled efforts to add a negotiated verification process to an international
bio-weapons ban, by telling other conference participants that the provision
was, “dead, dead, dead, and I don't want it coming back from the dead."
He saw no discrepancy between his accusations against Cuba and his negative
stand on the international bioweapons ban. Additionally, following the Bush
administration’s decision to withdraw from the ICC, Bolton asked and
was granted permission to sign his name on the letter notifying the UN of
Washington’s actions, which was somewhat bizarre since he had played
no official role in the decision-making process. The move was simply symbolic,
a need for a zealot to be heard: as he later told the Wall Street Journal,
it was “the happiest moment of [his] government service.”
Not surprisingly, according to Bolton’s view, constitutional protections
of the right of free speech do not appear to carry the same weight as the
precious right to bear arms. This is particularly true when political dissent
stands in direct opposition to his myopic worldview. Regarding his ill-temper
towards civic participation in the policymaking process, he criticized "the
promotion of international advocacy activity by international or non-governmental
organizations."
Latin
America has Much to Fear
If Bush nominates Bolton to the second highest-ranking position at the State
Department, and if the latter survives what will likely be a very difficult
Senate confirmation process under the scrutiny of Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN), the decision will have markedly long-lasting
repercussions in Latin America. Washington’s bilateral relations with
the newly emerging coalition of left-of-center governments in Caracas, Brasilia,
Buenos Aires and Montevideo, among others, likely will rapidly sour, as the
latter will accurately interpret Bolton’s ascension as reflecting a
significant shift of U.S. foreign policy much further to the right than has
been in evidence even during the last four difficult years under Bush. Bolton’s
past actions and public record have demonstrated that he is either oblivious
to or unconcerned with the root causes for Latin America’s many ills,
such as its pressing need for socioeconomic and governmental reforms and its
possessing the most skewed wealth distribution in the world.
Bolton has otherwise focused on counterproductive quick-fix solutions that
usually end up only responding to Washington’s narrow self interests,
such as blind adherence to neoliberal reforms, while leaving a majority of
Latin Americans worse off than before. Furthermore, his overriding obsession
with U.S. dominance and the protection of its power, his nostalgia for Cold
War-era tactics and his fervent backing of every one of Washington’s
frequent interventions in the region will likely signify a quick death for
whatever constructive dialogue might have been possible between Washington
and a continent increasingly skeptical of the former’s goodwill regarding
its basic regional interests.
This analysis was prepared by Gabriel Espinosa Gonzalez, COHA Research Associate.
December
15, 2004
COHA
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