President Bush has sent a severe message in picking John Bolton
as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; namely, that he
will only play along if the United Nations gives him what he
wants.
Like Bush, Bolton is a conservative hard-liner who isn’t
willing to compromise if he believes he can cut a more direct path.
But the choice will backfire if Bush does not control Bolton
carefully ““ other nations are rightfully suspicious of a man
who has shown contempt for the organization he is joining.
In 1994 Bolton said in a speech, “There is no such thing
as the United Nations. There is an international community that
occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world,
and that is the United States.”
On other occasions Bolton has criticized European
“appeasement” of the Middle East. And North Korea has
already said it cannot work with him.
Bolton is a man with a lot of baggage ““ especially for
someone who is supposed to represent the United States to the rest
of the world.
He has a reputation of being an unwavering conservative and was
reportedly the top pick of Vice President Dick Cheney and other
neo-conservatives. He currently serves as the head of arms control
for the State Department.
In many ways Bush’s choice should not be a surprise:
Conservatives have long believed the United Nations causes more
trouble than it solves. According to this line of thinking, the
United States should always act in its own best interests,
regardless of what the United Nations might say about the
matter.
Yet in his first term, Bush also tried to play both sides of the
U.N. coin: Before invading Iraq in 2003 he frequently cited U.N
resolutions as the basis for military intervention. In recent weeks
he has pointed to Security Council Resolution 1559 when demanding
the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Bush’s distorted worldview ignores the give-and-take
realities of global politics. The United States may be the
strongest single nation, but the quagmire in Iraq proves no single
nation can stand alone.
Fighting terrorism, saving the environment, defeating poverty
and stopping nuclear proliferation are all interconnected at the
global level. Weak, unstable and desperate nations are a much
greater threat to the globe ““ and the United States ““
than prosperous and secure nations.
On some level, Bush understands this. On Tuesday, Bush told a
crowd at the National Defense University that democracy is the best
way to fight terrorism.
But democracy cannot be forced on unwilling participants.
It must be slowly built up and nurtured. It cannot be built with
tanks, but with cooperative economic and diplomatic reform.
Despite its flaws, the United Nations remains the best forum for
addressing and securing the vital national interests of the United
States. Bush should play along ““ and make sure Bolton does
too. They might be surprised by what they can accomplish.