Bolton Time

While I've been a bit cynical and sarcastic about it, readers will know that I've been annoyingly praising of the Bush administration's decision to essentially flip-flop and start running a good foreign policy in the second term. The appointment of John Bolton as UN Ambassador, however, indicates that the malfactors of the first term are far from out of the battle yet. Preventing this disaster would be a major accomplishment for the country and, in its small way, for the blogosphere. Steve Clemons' The Washington Note is, of course, ground zero for this topic where you can find out who you should be calling about this (see the end of the post). Steve also makes the excellent point that by all accounts this is a move that's been forced on Condoleezza Rice, and not part of some brilliant Rice-ian policy to implement a Nixon-in-China UN reform agenda. Don't miss the Stop Bolton.org site, either.

Beyond that, a substantive point. One thing people like to point to in the Bolton record as a demonstration of his merits is the Proliferation Security Initiative. PSI certainly is a relative bright spot in the administration's god-awful anti-proliferation record in that it (a) exists, and (b) is, unlike most of the things Bush has bothered to do on this front, not actually counterproductive. That said, as bright spots go, it's pretty questionable:

The initiative does not empower countries to do anything that they previously could not do. Most importantly, PSI does not grant governments any new legal authority to conduct interdictions in international waters or airspace. Such interdictions may take place, but they must be confined to what is currently permissible under international law. . . . PSI is an informal arrangement among countries. To date, there is no list of criteria by which interdictions are to be made (except that the cargo is destined for a recipient that might use it to harm the United States or other countries). There is also no secretariat or formal organization that serves as a coordinating body.

In part, people say the gappy and inadequate quality of the PSI is a result of poor administration follow-through in an administration's that's demonstrated poor follow-through on virtually all of its major policy initiatives (see especially, No Child Left Behind, the Faith-Based and Community Initiative, the occupation of Iraq). Beyond that, though, it represents the result of John Bolton's belief that international law and multinational institutions as such are objectionable, should be weakened, and certainly should not be created. It's important to understand that this is a wildly different view from simple extreme skepticism about the efficacy of any particular international institution. It's an objection to the idea of effective international institutions. Given the opportunity to create one from scratch -- the PSI -- Bolton didn't design one that, by his lights, was really good and useful. Instead, he didn't create one at all because he just thinks it's wrong to seek a rule-based global order. Somebody with that attitude is the worst possible candidate to reform the UN or represent American interests there.