Watching Bolton
The other day I posted on John Bolton's re-nomination as US Ambassador to the UN here. Today's NY Times took a brief look at Bolton's work at the UN since his recess appointment. Apparently his colleagues are exasperated with him, which is hardly a surprise.
The Bush administration is not popular at the United Nations, where it is often perceived as disdainful of diplomacy, and its policies as heedless of the effects on others and single-minded in the willful assertion of American interests. By extension, then, many diplomats say they see Mr. Bolton as a stand-in for the arrogance of the administration itself.
But diplomats focus particularly on an area with less evidence of instructions from Washington and more of Mr. Bolton’s personal touch, the mission that he has described as his priority: overhauling the institution’s discredited management. Envoys say he has in fact endangered that effort by alienating traditional allies. They say he combatively asserts American leadership, contests procedures at the mannerly, rules-bound United Nations and then shrugs off the organization when it does not follow his lead.
... Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on an international relations subcommittee that focuses on the United Nations, said that in a visit here last month he had encountered “frustration and resentment over the U.S. performance at the U.N.”
And outside experts also expressed concerns.
“I actually agree with Bolton on what has to be done at the U.N., but his confrontational tactics have been very dysfunctional for the U.S. purpose,” said Edward C. Luck, a professor of international affairs at Columbia who has followed the United Nations for three decades. “To be successful at the U.N., you have to build coalitions, and if you take unilateral action the way Bolton has, you’re isolated, and if you’re isolated, you can’t achieve much.”
... An envoy of a country close to the United States complained that Mr. Bolton often stayed away from meetings, leaving ambassadors in the dark about American positions, then produced 11th-hour amendments and demands for reopening points that had been painfully muscled into consensus.
“We are all like cooks, and the U.S. is sitting on the sidewalk and when we have this platter cooked, the U.S. comes in and says it was the wrong dish, you were cooking chicken and we wanted meat,” said an envoy from a country close to the United States. [Emphasis added]
Given Mr. Bolton's rather colorful history with the State Department before the appointment to his current post, this certainly doesn't come as news. His behavior all along has reflected bullying aggressiveness and boorish manners. His appointment gave the regime the double benefit of showing the world just what it thought of the United Nations and getting Mr. Bolton out of State, where he was causing problems.
After reading the NY Times article, I wondered over to Bolton Watch at tpm cafe to see what Michael Roston had up. Once again, Mr. Roston has posted an excellent bit of analysis, based on a Foreign Policy magazine article.
Barbara Crossette, the long time UN correspondent for the New York Times and now a consulting editor at the UN Association of the United States of America, had already written a "memo to the Secretary of State" for Foreign Policy magazine highlighting the Bolton problem in advance of any confirmed word of his renomination.
Most of the article is behind Foreign Policy's subscriber wall, but I thought I'd share a few key details for you of the problems Crossette sees in Bolton's tenure. Her arguments and the way she prepares them are instructive examples of the message that should be sounded by Bolton critics. Over the next week, as we gear up for Thursday's renomination hearing, Crossette's wise and calm analysis of how Bolton's tactics have concretely slowed UN reform should be modeled.
Some particular problems in Bolton's past year have included:
* Too much involvement in US foreign policy-making - instead of implementing State Department directives and reporting back to Washington on what states are doing at the UN, Bolton is spending too much time in DC. When there, he is keeping up independent relationships with the White House to enable him to effectively run a mini-State Department of his own in New York - in spite of Dr. Rice's assurances to the world last year that he'd be working for her.
* Micro-managing important international matters - no one around Turtle Bay has forgotten Bolton's severe and numerous modifications to the text of the declaration issued by the UN's World Summit last year. President Bush ultimately had to step in and offer remarks during his address to the Summit to show that Bolton's positions on UN reform were not necessarily America's.
* Picking big fights over small issues - Crossette details a dispute over a cultural convention at UNESCO which severely angered a number of key UN countries. The objectives achieved by this move were little understood by anyone but Bolton.
Like it or not, the US needs to work with the United Nations on several matters: Iran, Darfur, Somalia, the Israel-Lebanon violence. At some point, assistance from the international community for Iraq will also be required. It would be nice if we had someone who understood how diplomacy worked attending to duties at the UN. John Bolton is clearly not that someone.
Hearings on his re-nomination commence this week, probably on Tuesday. The Democrats had better be ready this time.
The Bush administration is not popular at the United Nations, where it is often perceived as disdainful of diplomacy, and its policies as heedless of the effects on others and single-minded in the willful assertion of American interests. By extension, then, many diplomats say they see Mr. Bolton as a stand-in for the arrogance of the administration itself.
But diplomats focus particularly on an area with less evidence of instructions from Washington and more of Mr. Bolton’s personal touch, the mission that he has described as his priority: overhauling the institution’s discredited management. Envoys say he has in fact endangered that effort by alienating traditional allies. They say he combatively asserts American leadership, contests procedures at the mannerly, rules-bound United Nations and then shrugs off the organization when it does not follow his lead.
... Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on an international relations subcommittee that focuses on the United Nations, said that in a visit here last month he had encountered “frustration and resentment over the U.S. performance at the U.N.”
And outside experts also expressed concerns.
“I actually agree with Bolton on what has to be done at the U.N., but his confrontational tactics have been very dysfunctional for the U.S. purpose,” said Edward C. Luck, a professor of international affairs at Columbia who has followed the United Nations for three decades. “To be successful at the U.N., you have to build coalitions, and if you take unilateral action the way Bolton has, you’re isolated, and if you’re isolated, you can’t achieve much.”
... An envoy of a country close to the United States complained that Mr. Bolton often stayed away from meetings, leaving ambassadors in the dark about American positions, then produced 11th-hour amendments and demands for reopening points that had been painfully muscled into consensus.
“We are all like cooks, and the U.S. is sitting on the sidewalk and when we have this platter cooked, the U.S. comes in and says it was the wrong dish, you were cooking chicken and we wanted meat,” said an envoy from a country close to the United States. [Emphasis added]
Given Mr. Bolton's rather colorful history with the State Department before the appointment to his current post, this certainly doesn't come as news. His behavior all along has reflected bullying aggressiveness and boorish manners. His appointment gave the regime the double benefit of showing the world just what it thought of the United Nations and getting Mr. Bolton out of State, where he was causing problems.
After reading the NY Times article, I wondered over to Bolton Watch at tpm cafe to see what Michael Roston had up. Once again, Mr. Roston has posted an excellent bit of analysis, based on a Foreign Policy magazine article.
Barbara Crossette, the long time UN correspondent for the New York Times and now a consulting editor at the UN Association of the United States of America, had already written a "memo to the Secretary of State" for Foreign Policy magazine highlighting the Bolton problem in advance of any confirmed word of his renomination.
Most of the article is behind Foreign Policy's subscriber wall, but I thought I'd share a few key details for you of the problems Crossette sees in Bolton's tenure. Her arguments and the way she prepares them are instructive examples of the message that should be sounded by Bolton critics. Over the next week, as we gear up for Thursday's renomination hearing, Crossette's wise and calm analysis of how Bolton's tactics have concretely slowed UN reform should be modeled.
Some particular problems in Bolton's past year have included:
* Too much involvement in US foreign policy-making - instead of implementing State Department directives and reporting back to Washington on what states are doing at the UN, Bolton is spending too much time in DC. When there, he is keeping up independent relationships with the White House to enable him to effectively run a mini-State Department of his own in New York - in spite of Dr. Rice's assurances to the world last year that he'd be working for her.
* Micro-managing important international matters - no one around Turtle Bay has forgotten Bolton's severe and numerous modifications to the text of the declaration issued by the UN's World Summit last year. President Bush ultimately had to step in and offer remarks during his address to the Summit to show that Bolton's positions on UN reform were not necessarily America's.
* Picking big fights over small issues - Crossette details a dispute over a cultural convention at UNESCO which severely angered a number of key UN countries. The objectives achieved by this move were little understood by anyone but Bolton.
Like it or not, the US needs to work with the United Nations on several matters: Iran, Darfur, Somalia, the Israel-Lebanon violence. At some point, assistance from the international community for Iraq will also be required. It would be nice if we had someone who understood how diplomacy worked attending to duties at the UN. John Bolton is clearly not that someone.
Hearings on his re-nomination commence this week, probably on Tuesday. The Democrats had better be ready this time.
posted by Diane at 10:23 AM
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