Bolton The Albatross

Wayne White

August 03, 2005

Wayne White is currently an Adjunct Scholar with the  Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. White retired as Deputy Director for Middle East & South Asia in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR) in March 2005, spending 32 years in the Foreign Service and INR.  During much of 2003-2005, he also headed INR's Iraq team.

Developments at the United Nations in the coming months may demonstrate why John Bolton should never have been nominated for the post of U.N. ambassador in the first place, let alone given a highly controversial recess appointment. In fact, to prevent Bolton from proving his critics right, the administration may get stuck with the chore of seeing that he stays out of trouble—making the White House, in the end, the biggest loser.

By the end of Bolton's nomination hearings, the administration doubtless knew, as did well-informed Americans across the political spectrum, that Bolton clearly was not the best man for the job. While many observers still maintain that Bolton enjoys the president's confidence, this is difficult to believe under the circumstances. His nomination simply became a political football in which dropping it would have been a "defeat" for the White House, something the president instinctively would seek to avoid at all costs.

Bolton's first major challenge in New York could very likely relate to the Middle East, and it could develop fairly quickly. That would involve the long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear program. The Iranian regime, now even more thoroughly dominated by conservative hardliners, is not likely to have either the will or diplomatic skill to resolve its differences with the European Union (and the United States), so the Iranian nuclear impasse may well end up in the U.N. Security Council.

Yet to move through the Council a sufficiently tough resolution on Iran would require Bolton to excel in two areas that would appear to be his weakest: marketing U.S. intelligence and building consensus.

That would be a rather tall order considering what his colleagues on the Council already know about his past. Of course some other U.N. representatives are putting the best face possible on the Bolton appointment, but it will take time and effort to convince them that Bolton is someone with whom they can work. Until then, on issues involving intelligence, senior U.S. officials may have to be sent from Washington to carry Bolton's water because without help, behind closed doors, and on his own, Bolton lacks all credibility. If such assistance is, in fact, required to work important issues involving intelligence, one returns to the original question as to why Bolton has been sent to New York in the first place.

Iraq promises to be the other major Middle East challenge for the weakened U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. By mid-2006, Bolton might face the need for some manner of U.N. action related to a Coalition withdrawal from Iraq. But Iraq is perhaps the most difficult issue on which to engage the United Nations after the series of diplomatic and literal disasters the world body has suffered over Iraq.

In the wake of the 2003 U.N. headquarters bombing in Baghdad and the Oil for Food scandal, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other senior U.N. officials have been reluctant to become involved in Iraq, especially if that were to mean putting boots or suits on the ground. Should U.N. assistance be needed in lending more legitimacy to next year's permanent Iraqi government and the beginning of a phased Coalition withdrawal, how useful would  Bolton be in persuading the Secretariat or the Security Council to take risks and re-engage, tarnished as he is by his attempt to cook intelligence directly linked to the United States' invasion of Iraq?

Both of these major Middle East issues demonstrate that tampering with intelligence is a very serious matter and not something in which a senior member of this nation's foreign policy team, like Bolton is now, can afford to engage. Once such a policymaker fails to keep an open mind, becomes narrowly focused on simply ramming home certain policies, and regards dissenting views as merely unhelpful and disruptive, he or she crosses the line into the strategic danger zone.

I am familiar with such dangers. Back in 1982, one senior State Department official tried to persuade me to help suppress intelligence analysis warning that the 1982 U.S. Marine deployment to Lebanon would be dangerous. When I refused to cooperate and stood my ground, he simply chose to ignore the warning.

Of course, the diplomatically-challenged John Bolton will not only be facing issues emerging from the troubled Middle East. He will also have to complete the more front-burner issue of U.N. reform. Secretary General Annan remarked on Monday that it would be fine for one representative to "push," but he (Bolton) would have to be mindful that there are 190 others. Despite reports that much of what the administration wants in the way of U.N. reform is already underway, Washington may still press hard to show that Bolton has a real mission of reform in New York. But whatever battles he can find to wage on this front, he will discover rather quickly that this requires our ambassador to be a team player, not a confrontational crusader.

At a time when the United States suffers from lack of credibility, Bolton is a liability that the administration can ill-afford. Just as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice works hard to repair the damage of the past few years, the White House must seek to ensure that Bolton does not become the source of still more resentment.

With that in mind, regardless of Bolton's instincts one way or the other, he must be kept on a very tight leash by the White House and Secretary Rice. In the past, there have been other relatively weak American U.N. envoys who have labored under sometimes galling limitations. In this case, the administration must do all it can to prevent Bolton from proving his critics right, especially during his first months on the job. Left to his own devices, Bolton appears capable of doing just that.