Article: Hardline, Uncompromising Conservative Bites Dust

Bolton resigns as US ambassador to UN
By Caroline Daniel in Washington and Mark Turner in New York
Published: December 4 2006 14:35
Financial Times

The White House on Monday bowed to the political realities imposed by the new Democratic Congress when it accepted John Bolton’s resignation as Ambassador to the United Nations, ending his combative, controversial tenure.

His departure marks the second high profile resignation of Mr Bush’s long serving foreign policy team after the November mid-term elections. Tony Snow, White House spokesman, admitted defeat saying, it was “pretty obvious” he wasn’t going to get the votes from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr Bolton had become to his critics an unpopular symbol of an aggressive, unilateralist style of US foreign policy. President George W. Bush on Monday hailed his record and his “extraordinary dedication and skill, assembling coalitions that addressed some of the most consequential issues facing the international community,” such as the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.

The White House decision last month to re-nominate Mr Bolton – who had needed to be imposed in a recess appointment – was seen by some political analysts as a strategic mistake, undermining Mr Bush’s immediate rhetoric of bi-partisanship and was always doomed to fail. Joe Biden, the incoming Democrat chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, warned he saw no point in reconsidering it.

“The administration made a minor mistake over John Bolton,” said Vin Weber, a Republican strategist. “His resignation is a recognition of the fact the administration is in the process of sorting out what its new relationship with Capital Hill looks like.”

However, Norm Ornstein, resident scholar fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said it had made sense to pursue it, even if failure was inevitable. “It was a balancing act with his conservative base, and an effort to show some loyalty.”

The White House was reluctant to present it as a conciliatory move for Democrats. Mr Bush blamed “stubborn obstructionism,” while Mr Snow said the “appointments process is broken,” and charged that “for reasons of partisanship a handful of senators prevented him remaining UN ambassador.”

Opposition to Mr Bolton was not just confined to Democrats. Lincoln Chafee, a Republican moderate who lost his Senate seat, also blocked Mr Bolton’s nomination. Democrats, such as Senator John Kerry, were quick to claim a scalp. “Like Secretary Rumsfeld’s departure, Ambassador Bolton’s resignation offers a chance to turn the page at a critical period.” He called for a new ambassador “who has the full support of Congress,” and “who can put results ahead of ideology.”

Mr Bolton will leave at the end of lame duck congressional session. The announcement comes at a difficult time for the UN. While Mr Bolton saw through several important UN resolutions on Lebanon, Iran and other trouble spots over recent months, the permanent five are once more struggling to make policy on the fast-evolving situation around the Middle East.

Talks on Iran are currently being held by political directors, not ambassadors, but the dossier is expected to return to the UN before Christmas. Serious challenges remain in Darfur, Somalia and Lebanon; and the UN is still struggling to find a way through on internal reforms.

Opinion Blog
UK Times

John Bolton has resigned as US Ambassador to the UN. The Economist argued that his main success has been to unite the southern hemisphere against the rich north. Newt Gingrich in this National Review article from last year defended Bolton from the accusation that he is too tough, rough and uncompromising. From the Left, the stalkerish website Bolton Watch has been keeping tabs on him. And here you can read The Nation’s take on Bolton’s original appointment:

Perhaps the real damage is the signal Bush has sent to the other members of the UN: that the United States is not really serious about the organization it helped to found. Almost as worrying is the implicit message of encouragement to the know-nothings on the extreme right of the Republican Party, who get their news and geography from Rush Limbaugh and Fox, and see the UN as a cabal of gun-reforming, gay-liberating, abortion-peddling, US Constitution-undermining foreigners.

But does the UN deserve to be treated seriously? If you read Rosemary Righter’s splendid (but long) piece in The Times Literary Supplement, the answer will have to be “no”. The UN is looking rather beside the point.

The UN no longer exists, as it did in 1945, in lonely eminence. It must compete for influence in a world of instant communications and multiple voices, and of networks inside and outside government that operate across frontiers with unprecedented ease. Globalization is transforming not only the world economy, but also the relations between governments and their increasingly mobile, disconcertingly better-informed citizens. The inter-state threats which the UN’s security machinery was designed to address have been largely displaced by the problems of collapsing, dysfunctional states and the globalization of organized crime and terrorist networks.

Bolton quits as UN envoy for Bush Administration
Tim Reid, Washington
Comment Central: Was he what the UN deserves?

John Bolton, the controversial ambassador to the United Nations, resigned today after it became clear that President Bush was unable to muster support for his reappointment.

Mr Bush, who received Mr Bolton’s resignation letter on Friday, said he was “deeply disappointed” that a “handful” of senators had blocked the appointment. But the resignation reflected the new reality in Washington of a greatly weakened president who, with Democrats now controlling the House and Senate, can no longer count on getting what he wants.

He is the second high-profile casualty of that change in the balance of power in last month’s mid-term elections following Mr Bush’s removal of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defence. Confirmation hearings for his successor Robert Gates begin tomorrow.

Mr Bolton, a blunt, irascible hawk who earlier in his career expressed contempt for the UN, was unable to get Senate confirmation last year and was installed to the post by Mr Bush in August 2005 by means of a recess appointment, when Congress was not in session. Recess appointments are temporary, and without formal confirmation this month Mr Bolton’s tenure at the UN will expire when the current session of Congress adjourns on January 3.

As recently as last week Mr Bush was adamant that Mr Bolton should remain at the UN despite the fact that he lacked the votes on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to move the nomination to a full floor vote.

The White House had been looking for yet another way around the impasse, one option being to appoint him as an “acting” ambassador for another few months. But Mr Bolton’s fate was effectively sealed with the Democrats’ takeover of the Senate after last month’s mid-term elections. Joe Biden, the incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he saw “no point in considering Mr Bolton’s nomination again.

The final blow came after Lincoln Chaffee, a moderate Republican on the committee who lost his Rhode Island seat on November 7, said he would not vote for Mr Bolton if the nomination was considered in the final weeks of this congressional session.

John Kerry, Mr Bush’s 2004 Democratic challenger, said Mr Bolton’s departure could be a turning point for the Administration.

“With the Middle East on the verge of chaos and the nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea increasing, we need a United Nations ambassador who has the full support of Congress and can help rally the international community to tackle the serious threats we face,” Mr Kerry said.

There was no word from the White House on who will be nominated to replace Mr Bolton, but the choice will say much about the tenor of Mr Bush’s diplomatic intentions during his last two years in office.

One possible contender is the Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr Bush’s current ambassador to Iraq. One of the Administration’s most skilled diplomats, there has been a growing expectation that after nearly 18 months in Baghdad Mr Khalilzad’s time in Iraq is coming to a close, particularly as his relentless efforts to co-opt Iraq’s Sunni minority into the political process has had little success.

Mr Bolton’s hardline, uncompromising conservatism meant he was deemed totally unsuitable for the job by Democrats and some moderate Republicans, particularly with his 1994 comment that if the UN building in New York lost ten storeys “it wouldn’t make a bit of difference”. But Mr Bush believed he was the perfect choice to force reform at the UN.

Since he took up the post, Mr Bolton has won over many former critics in the UN and has achieved some notable successes on the Security Council. He pushed through a strong sanctions resolution against North Korea within days of Pyongyang’s October 9 nuclear test, and worked successfully with France to broker and oversee the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon

December 4, 2006
At U.N., Mixed Views of Bolton’s Tenure

By WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 4 — The announcement today of John R. Bolton’s imminent departure was greeted by United Nations officials with relief and by diplomats with mixed assessments of his effectiveness during his 17 months as the United States ambassador.

“No comment, he said with a smile,” Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary general, said over his shoulder to reporters who pursued him as he hustled through the corridors of U.N. headquarters on his way to a meeting.

Mr. Malloch Brown angered Mr. Bolton this summer by accusing the United States of “stealth diplomacy” — turning to the United Nations when Washington needed it, while continuing to publicly disdain the institution’s value and to encourage its harshest detractors.

At the time, Mr. Bolton demanded a personal apology from Secretary General Kofi Annan, but did not get it.

Mr. Bolton’s relationship with Mr. Annan was also marked by testiness. He repeatedly ducked opportunities offered by reporters to praise or commend Mr. Annan, usually by changing the subject or by saying, as he did on one such occasion last month, “I’ll pass.”

A year ago, Mr. Annan startled Security Council ambassadors at one of their monthly luncheons by chastising Mr. Bolton for trying to “intimidate” him.

Mr. Annan told reporters today: “It is difficult to blame one individual ambassador for difficulties on some of these issues, whether it is reform or some other issues. But I think what I have always maintained is that it is important that the ambassadors work together, that the ambassadors understand that to get concessions, they have to make concessions, and they need to work with each other for the organization to move ahead.”

Security Council ambassadors said they respected Mr. Bolton personally and that they thought he represented the United States well, but they said his manner — often described as abrupt and confrontational — alienated traditional American allies and undercut American influence.

They said that in areas where he was clearly taking his instructions from Washington, he performed well. But when it came to the objective that he described as the United States’s priority and on which he planted his personal stamp — overhauling the management of the U.N. — he was unsuccessful.

Of course, even Mr. Bolton’s success in championing the Bush administration represented a problem for him at the world organization, where that policy is perceived as disdainful of diplomacy itself, heedless in its effects on others and single-minded in its assertion of American interests.

“I think he was serious about the American objective here of reforming the United Nations, and he pushed hard,” said Wang Guangya, the Chinese ambassador. “But of course, sometimes in order to achieve the objective, you have to work together with others.”

Adamantios Vassilakis, the Greek ambassador, said: “I had a good personal relationship with him. Sometimes it was not easy, but we managed to find a solution whenever I dealt with him.”

A third ambassador from a Security Council member state, asking to speak anonymously when commenting on a fellow envoy, said, “People here are not against the United States, but I think the United States lost a lot of things because of Bolton’s tactics.”

In Moscow, the Novosti news agency quoted a Russian foreign ministry spokesman saying that Mr. Bolton had been “a very strong professional, although on a series of issues, including problems of U.N. reform, he supported extremely severe views.”

The spokesman added that he hoped President Bush would nominate a successor without “excessive severity in his approach.”

Mr. Vassilakis said he thought Mr. Bolton had been particularly effective in obtaining Security Council backing for resolutions condemning North Korea’s nuclear program, but less so in gaining support for joint action against Iran’s nuclear program. “But then, Iran is more complicated,” he said.

On Mr. Bolton’s campaign to bring about change in United Nations practices, he said, “I might say I would personally push for the same thing with different tactics, but that’s a different story.”

Asked about achievements of Mr. Bolton, both Mr. Wang and Mr. Vassilakis noted approvingly a simple but dramatic step Mr. Bolton took a year ago, when the United States held the rotating presidency of the Security Council. Mr. Bolton insisted that Council meetings begin on time, and to illustrate the point, he gaveled the first meeting of his tenure to order at the appointed hour even though he was the only ambassador in the chamber at the time.

“I think, generally speaking, he wanted the council to work more effectively and he wanted to change the working habits here so we started punctually,” he said.

Mr. Vassilakis said, “Starting on time is an important thing, because the interpreters are paid, and if we say we are going to start at 10 and we start at 10:30, they cash their salary early.”

Mr. Bolton is leaving his post just weeks before Mr. Annan, who completes his second five-year term in office on Dec. 31, leaves his. “Yes,” Mr. Annan said today, “we are both graduating together.”