The FP Memo: Damage Control

To: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
From: Barbara Crossette
Re: How to Defuse the Bolton Bomb

There is no larger diplomatic stage than the United Nations, and right now an international audience is morbidly fascinated by the tactics of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. As was apparent during his bruising confirmation battle, Ambassador Bolton has a long history of deep skepticism toward international organizations, particularly this one, and a demonstrated aversion to commitments that could entangle the United States.

Many Americans share his sentiments, at least in part. Polls show that positive feelings toward the organization have cooled in the wake of recent U.N. scandals, most notably the oil-for-food imbroglio. Still, Americans also say they want the United Nations to have a major role in the world (nearly 70 percent of respondents in a recent Gallup poll), and they have an inherent sense that a host of problems -- not least terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and pandemic diseases -- must be dealt with collectively.

Bolton is not the rabid, out-of-control figure that his opponents frequently conjure up. Nor does he push the social agenda of the religious right. He is appreciated by his counterparts in New York as brilliant, knowledgeable, hardworking and, on occasion, wonderfully wry in his humor. When he was president of the Security Council in February, he insisted that council meetings start on time and that the council have a steady flow of reports from the field. But keen intelligence and sheer tenacity allow him to have an oversized impact, and perhaps make him a formidable challenge for you. At the United Nations, Bolton has often overwhelmed and angered delegates from other countries by raising dozens of last-minute amendments to long-negotiated agreements. It’s great lawyering, but poor diplomacy.

In a characteristically confrontational -- some say prosecutorial -- style, Bolton has effectively slowed the reforms that the State Department has demanded of the United Nations. He has thrown the organization into financial insecurity by trying to block passage of its budget. He has frustrated friends and allies, among them Canada, Europe, and Japan, leaving experienced diplomats asking whether he is running his own foreign policy. The United Nations, battered by more than a year of assault from isolationist voices in the U.S. Congress, has been weakened, not strengthened, during Bolton’s time on the job. The State Department needs to regain control.

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