President Bush has nominated John Bolton – currently undersecretary of state – to be ambassador to the United Nations, a presidential appointment that requires Senate confirmation.
Will examining Senators focus on what they expect Bolton to accomplish in his new post, or will they focus on the mess of things he made in his last post?
In particular, during the past presidential campaign, John Kerry correctly accused President Bush of making the use of a nuclear weapon against us more likely by failing to fully support the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Bush, in rebuttal, pointed with pride to his Proliferation Security Initiative, which he had made “central” to his “dealing with weapons of mass destruction and proliferation.”
Senator Kerry’s accusations amount to an indictment of Bolton. Bush’s rebuttal amounts to an exoneration .
The Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security "manages global U.S. security policy, principally in the areas of nonproliferation, arms control, regional security and defense relations, and arms transfers and security assistance," and "serves as senior adviser to the president and the secretary of state."
When Bush became president – and when Bolton became his senior adviser on nuke proliferation prevention – North Korea, Iraq, and Iran were signatories to the Nonproliferation Treaty and had made all their NPT proscribed materials, facilities, and activities subject to periodic “safeguards” inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
However, Bush soon claimed to have “intelligence” that all three were secretly pursuing nuke development programs. Worse, Bush charged that the IAEA-NPT nuke proliferation prevention regime was incompetent to prevent or even uncover those illicit nuke development programs.
So, Bush unilaterally abrogated the IAEA-monitored Agreed Framework with North Korea in October, 2002, and soon after announced his own National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction. Bolton developed from it the Proliferation Security Initiative, whose stated objective was to create a web of international “counter-proliferation partnerships” to prevent “proliferators” from “carrying out their trade in WMD and missile-related technology.”
According to Bolton, the PSI was necessary because “proliferators and those facilitating the procurement of deadly capabilities are circumventing existing laws, treaties, and controls against WMD proliferation.”
Furthermore, Bolton declared that the PSI – unlike the IAEA-NPT Safeguards regime – "is not diverted by disputes about candidacies for director general, agency budgets, agendas for meetings, and the like.”
In reaction to Bush’s unilateral abrogation of the IAEA-monitored Agreed Framework, the Koreans promptly withdrew from the Nonproliferation Treaty, itself, and its IAEA Safeguards regime, resumed its "frozen" weapons-grade plutonium production and recovery operations, and has recently "confirmed" CIA estimates that it now has – thanks to Bush-Bolton – a nuke stockpile.
Can Bolton claim any successes?
Well, sort of. Whenever Bolton suspected anyone was buying, selling, or facilitating the transfer of “deadly capabilities” to or from countries like North Korea, he would order one or more of the sixty PSI "cooperating states" to “interdict” – on land, sea, or in the air – the suspect purchase, sale, or transfer.
For example, two years ago Taiwanese government officials detained – at Bolton’s request – the North Korean cargo vessel Be Gaehung, which had made port at Kaoshung, boarded it, and confiscated 158 barrels of phosphorus pentasulfide, which U.S. intelligence “suspected” could be used to make “rocket fuel.”
Now Bolton’s PSI “interdiction” may sound a lot like piracy to you, a flagrant violation of all kinds of international law.
But Bolton claims that Bush’s PSI is justified by the UNSC President’s Statement of Jan. 31, 1992, which says – among other things – "The members of the Council underline the need for all Member States to fulfill their obligations in relation to arms control and disarmament, to prevent the proliferation in all its aspects of all weapons of mass destruction.”
Is the Bush-Bolton PSI what members of the Security Council had in mind way back in 1992?
Probably not, since the Statement went on to say,
“On nuclear proliferation, they [Council Members] note the importance of the decision of many countries to adhere to the Nonproliferation Treaty and emphasize the integral role in the implementation of that Treaty of fully effective IAEA safeguards, as well as the importance of effective export controls. The members of the Council will take appropriate measures in the case of any violations notified to them by the IAEA.”
So, as regards Bolton’s stewardship as undersecretary; on the negative side, the IAEA-NPT Safeguards regime is in ruins and the North Koreans now have nukes. However, on the positive side, thanks to Bolton, we have 158 barrels of their phosphorus pentasulfide.
