Waiting for John Bolton

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Bring it on
The political tussle over the Bolton nomination comes at a critical time for the U.N., still numbed but also somewhat invigorated by the 2003 debate over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

With America the 2,000-pound gorilla of the U.N., there’s little concern at the U.S. mission to the U.N., which Bolton will run if confirmed, that somehow the angry rhetoric of the confirmation hearings will impact the next ambassador’s ability to get things done.

“Everyone here understands that there is a political element that goes into the approval process in America,” says Rick Grinnell, spokesman for the U.S. mission here. “When Mr. Bolton is approved, everyone will be eager to work with him.”

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A key question for the next American ambassador, then, will be U.N. reform. Reacting to both the Iraq debate and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has tabled the most sweeping reform proposals ever attempted here in hope of having at least some major changes approved when world leaders gather in September to celebrate the 60^th opening session of the world body.

At least some of the proposals have the support of the United States, and Bolton, if confirmed, would play a major role in shaping them. At the same time, however, Annan’s prestige has faltered in light of revelations that his son benefited financially from the Iraq “oil-for-food” program that was meant to allow the economically strapped nation to feed its people during U.N. sanctions against the Saddam Hussein regime.

Can he be effective?
Still, many American career foreign service officers view Bolton's choice as proof the Bush administration is out to kill the U.N., or at least make it impossible to influence policy.

“By undermining the U.N., the administration can claim its argument that the organization is incapable has been proven correct,” says Dennis Jett, former U.S. ambassador to Peru and Mozambique and now dean of the University of Florida’s International Center. Jett and others argue that Bolton's performance in his current post, as the State Department’s chief official on non-proliferation, should be enough to raise serious questions.

“The question is, ‘Are you effective?’” says Jett. “Bolton clearly is not. The total failure of [last month’s U.N. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] conference demonstrates that, not to mention our failure to work effectively with other countries to prevent Iran and North Korea from getting nuclear weapons.”

If there is any glee about Bolton's nomination problems here, though, it appears to be tempered by realpolitik — that is, a knowledge that the American ambassador, no matter who he is, will wield unequal influence once installed.

“There’s a sense of ‘so what’ about it,” says a U.N. official, who would not speak about Bolton’s nomination on the record. “Most people here saw the last ambassador, John Negroponte, as a bull in a china shop. So now Washington is sending a ‘wild bull’ to the china shop? People don’t see that much difference. Mostly, I think, they just want to see a new American ambassador here and the United States more engaged in what the U.N. does.”

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