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What John will not ever admit and the media will never point out is the utter success of the Bolton school of diplomacy vs. the results from the Clinton years and the incompetent work of Madelaine Al bright.
During the Clinton administration the U.S. was fully engaged with North Korea and eventually with a great deal of patience and substantial food aid during a massive famine was able to get the North Koreans to terminate their nuclear weapons program. In fact, the North Koreans allowed the IA EA full access to their nuclear facilities and acceded to having remote cameras installed in the most sensitive areas of the facilities where they were beginning to produce weapons grade enriched uranium.
In return for substantial aid and a softening of the normal U.S. tone toward North Korea the North Korean government stopped pursuing the manufacture of a nuclear weapon and slowed the work on missile delivery systems.
This state of affairs remained the status quo until the end of the Clinton presidency. The truce was uneasy and the N. Koreans were caught cheating a few times, but according to the IA EA they had indeed stopped development of nuclear arms. Things were not anywhere close to perfect as the N. Koreans had been implicated in the selling of both weapons plans and the fuel to make them to Pakistan during the whole A. K. Khan flap.
But dealing with North Korea is never easy. A sane government will take their victories where they can find them.
Enter the Bush administration and with this new president, John Bolton. The Bolton school of diplomacy in a nutshell is to cut off all communication with any regime that isn't behaving the way he and the administration he works for thinks they should behave. John Bolton was given a key role in negotiations with North Korea and very quickly determined that this was a regime that could not be negotiated with in any way. Shortly after Bush named North Korea one of the three members of the "Axis of Evil" --Mr. Bolton said some other inflammatory things to the press and caused an international incident. He was, in fact, sent home by his boss but gave numerous interviews after his return to the U.S. that only fanned the flames of mutual suspicion and distrust.
Since Bush seemed to have a personal animus toward Kim Il Jong there was no apparent punishment levied against John Bolton. In fact, he was placed front and center and allowed to rattle the extremely impotent U.S. saber. No one, not even John Bolton, was suggesting that we attack or invade North Korea. So, it was all just sound and fury.
However, all talks broke down and North Korea expelled the IA EA inspectors and turned off the cameras in the uranium enrichment facilities and announced that they were reactivating their breeder reactor. In 24 months John Bolton with the full support of Bush and Cheney had undone the diplomatic work of eight years that had kept North Korea out of the nuclear arms club.
For this incredible accomplishment John Bolton was nominated the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations where he was able to successfully use his novel diplomatic tactics of aggressive insults and cutting off all communication with the other members of the Axis of Evil Iran.
Iran, who at the time repeatedly signaled their willingness to negotiate key aspects of their nuclear program was instead derided, dismissed, and threatened with invasion. A threat that was obviously an empty one since the U.S. military was currently completely bogged down in a guerrilla war of attrition in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In response to this brilliant ploy Iran expanded and accelerated their nuclear program with the assistance of Russia who we had completely pissed off by expanding NATO into Eastern Europe (right on Russia's borders) and forging an agreement with Poland to install a missile defense system (again on Russia's border) to ostensibly protect against Iranian nuclear missiles targeted at someone. Maybe the US. Maybe Germany. Since the missiles don't yet exist there is great uncertainty about that. However, Russia's a bit upset since the proximity of these anti-missile missiles could conceivably give the U.S. a first strike capability that we've never had before.
Bolton, who couldn't make it through Senate confirmation hearings because his own party thought he was a bit too crazy to be our U.N. ambassador was made U.N. ambassador via a recess appointment by Bush. Our press was mercifully silent on Bolton's abrasive actions while serving in this post (for which he couldn't be paid due to the lack of Senate confirmation), but even cursory reading of foreign new sources revealed that he still had the diplomatic skills of a Prussian Junker.
In particular, he continued to attack Iran at every opportunity with accusations that an Iranian nuclear device was imminent even though there was every evidence to the contrary.
Sometime during Mr. Bolton's tenure at the U.N. North Korea announced an underground nuclear weapon test thus proving the efficacy of simply ignoring the crazy bastards. Well, we showed them.
The world breathed a sigh of relief that the test was a failure and the device failed to explode. However, they've continued to work toward a nuclear arsenal and the next test was a limited success. North Korea has also been provocatively testing a variety of short and long range missiles capable of carrying explosive payloads at least as far as Japan. Hitting Seoul would be quite simple.
So, in a few short years the Bolton school of diplomacy resulted in a vastly stronger Iran that probably will be able to produce a nuclear weapon in the next few years, a fully isolated North Korea that has developed a nuclear weapon and has the means to deliver one within Asia, and a renewed cold war with Russia (who is not enjoying the aggression of the U.S. in areas geographically adjacent to its core territory and sphere of influence).
The Obama administration is trying to restart diplomatic efforts with Iran, North Korea, and Russia. They are having some success, but progress is bound to be slow.
But Bolton is still out there touting the same kind of approach which has proven to be the most incredibly abject failure in the history of international diplomacy. And he keeps getting air time. After all, he now works for that august body of strategic thought--the American Enterprise Institute. A group that is in competition with Bill Kristol to see who can be wrong about pretty much everything all of the time. Thank god these guys are funded by right wing wacko billionaires. If they had to actually make a living based on the accuracy of their predictions they'd all be living under bridges.
John Bolton, god bless his empathic soul, thinks that the U.S. should have just let those young women rot in jail in North Korea because dealing with North Korea at all shows some sort of national weakness. Never mind that the negotiations to secure the release of these hostages (and that is what they were) was done outside of official channels by a the President who had had the most success negotiating with Pyongyang since the Armistice was signed.
It just goes to show you that Bolton's view of his own colon never changes and intelligent thought is as foreign to him as is the notion of diplomacy.
You gotta love this guy.
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