Ex-Diplomats Urge Senate to Reject Bolton as UN Ambassador

When President Bush decided his man at the UN should be John R. Bolton, many took this as a snub to the UN and America's allies. A noted unilateralist and neo-con, future Ambassador Bolton's nomination largely split the Senate along party lines. However, the Senate is a political body composed of members who largely understand little if anything of international politics. More troubling is the opinion expressed by 59 former US diplomats who sent Senator Richard Lugar (R- IN) a letter in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Their operative sentence read, "We urge you to reject that nomination."

When one has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and so it is with the tools of international diplomacy. Since the Bush administration rode into town, the White House has taken the view that the Pentagon is in charge of US foreign policy. "War on Terror" encapsulates the perspective, and the behavior of the American leadership since Mr. Bush's UN speech September 12, 2002 has put military solutions ahead of any other kind. By the same token, the diplomats are taught from day one that talking is the way forward. Sometimes, it isn't.

However, the job of a diplomat, especially at the level of ambassador, ought to belong to someone who believes in diplomacy. Atheists make poor priests, and it seems John Bolton would make a poor diplomat because he lacks the outlook of a diplomat. At least, that is the contention of the 59 signatories of the letter sent to Senator Lugar. These people are in a position to know what that outlook is.

For example, Gerald Helman signed the letter, a man who held the UN job under Mr. Carter. Roger Kirk signed, and he was ambassador to Somalia and Romania under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan. Ambassador Princeton Lyman, who was US ambassador to Nigeria under Messrs. Reagan and Bush the Elder as well as to South Africa as it dropped apartheid under Mr. Clinton, put his name on the letter. Perhaps the most damning John Hancock was that of Arthur A. Hartman, Mr. Reagan's Ambassador to the USSR, a job that required steely-eyed skepticism and a willingness to overcome the formidable obstacles the arose between the US and USSR in the late 1980s.

According to the letter, which the AP got yesterday, the diplomats say that the nominee believes that the UN is valuable to the US only when it directly serves the interests of the US, ignoring the value of indirect service. They allege that in his current position as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, he has worked against making the US more secure through arms control. Further, they claim the has been a paid researcher for Taiwan and has argued (perhaps as part of his pay?) that Taiwan should be treated as an independent state (contrary to both US and American policy). They sum up, "His past activities and statements indicate conclusively that he is the wrong man for this position." At least the Bush administration is consistent -- most of the US foreign policy team should have other jobs.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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