Bolton's War

December 14, 2004

It might be a long way away—I’d guess 2006—but the war-on-Iran hawks in the Bush administration, led by John Bolton of the State Department, are rattling sabers. The Los Angeles Times has a good piece  describing the escalating rhetoric around Iran, and it starts with an anecdote about Bolton sabotaging talks with Europe over Iran:

Top diplomats from the United States and its closest allies gathered this fall in Washington to hammer out a common approach to Iran's nuclear ambitions. But the mood quickly soured.

Dispensing with the usual diplomatic niceties, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton simply read aloud a U.S. position paper. In it, the administration refused to back European negotiations with Iran and instead insisted that Tehran be dragged before the United Nations Security Council to condemn it for concealing a nuclear weapons program.

Irked, the Europeans demanded to know what good it would do to bring Iran before the U.N. when Washington knew it could not muster enough Security Council votes even to slap Tehran's wrist.

Bolton referred them to another U.S. position paper.

"He was not willing to discuss anything," said one stunned participant.

Meanwhile, the neocons are waiting for the “end of the day”:

Other officials said the United States and its allies have many options short of military action with which to isolate and punish a government that they believe persists in trying to develop nuclear weapons.

"At the end of the day we may have to do it," said another senior official, referring to military action. "We're not at the end of the day yet."