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The controversial former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and current senior fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), John Bolton is one of Washington’s more hardline foreign policy pundits. A frequent op-ed contributor to rightwing outlets like the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the National Review, Bolton’s views have included suggesting that Israel should use nuclear weapons against Iran and arguing that diplomacy is tantamount to weakness and indecisiveness.

A telling example of Bolton’s abrasive, provocative rhetoric came in late 2009, when he suggested to a University of Chicago audience that because negotiations and sanctions had ostensibly failed to curb Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons ambitions—this despite a then-recent agreement by Iran to ship uranium to France and Russia for enrichment—Israel should consider a nuclear strike against the country. Calling the argument advanced by some Obama administration officials that Iran could be deterred from using nuclear weapons “a dangerously weak approach,” Bolton declared that “we’re at a very unhappy point—a very unhappy point—where unless Israel is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran’s program, Iran will have nuclear weapons in the very near future.” Commented Daniel Luban of the Inter Press Service: “An Israeli strike, nuclear or otherwise, without U.S. permission remains unlikely. But as is often the case, I suspect that Bolton’s intention is less to give an accurate description of reality than it is to stake out positions extreme enough to shift the boundaries of debate as a whole to the right.” [1]

Bolton has also proved to be one of President Obama’s more bombastic critics. In an October 2009 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, for example, Bolton compared Obama to Ethlered the Unready, “the turn-of the-first-millennium Anglo-Saxon king whose reputation for indecisiveness and his unsuccessful paying of Danegeld … to buy off Viking raiders made him history's paradigmatic weak leader.” Channeling neoconservative rhetoric about the purported weakness of liberals, Bolton argued that Obama’s efforts on key international issues had amounted to little more than “dithering” and “indecision.” [2]

 

Track Record

Bolton has been a key Republican Party figure since the early 1980s, when he was tagged to serve in the Reagan administration. He quickly gained a reputation as one of a breed of “New Right lawyers” who operated at the second tier of the State Department or received top policy positions in the Justice Department. Bolton gained entry to the Reagan administration through strong support from Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and from New Right strategist Richard Viguerie and his influential Conservative Digest. Years later, during a January 1, 2001 speech at AEI, Helms said of Bolton: “John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon.”

During Ronald Reagan's second term, Bolton worked closely with a team of Federalist Society lawyers under Attorney General Edwin Meese. With Federalist Society members and activists in top policy positions, the Justice Department for the first time came under the ideological influence of the “new” right. [3]

Bolton's entrée into the administration of George W. Bush began in Florida in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. Working closely with his former boss James Baker, Bolton worked to block recount efforts. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bolton's “most memorable moment came after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount, when Mr. Bolton strode into a Tallahassee library, where the count was still going on, and declared: ‘I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count.’” [4]

Said Vice President-elect Dick Cheney at the time: “People ask what [job] John should get. My answer is, anything he wants.” Years later, however, Bolton highlighted his work during the Florida recount to bemoan what he saw as President Bush’s softening on foreign affairs in his second term. In a memoir he published after resigning as UN ambassador, Bolton wrote that he “didn't spend 31 days in Florida to end up where we are now.” [5]

As undersecretary of state representing the administration in various international fora, Bolton quickly confirmed his reputation as a hawkish unilateralist willing to make provocative statements detrimental to U.S. relations. In an exemplary display of what the Wall Street Journal described as his “combative style,” Bolton told an international conference on bioweapons that a hotly disputed verification proposal, which was widely supported by arms control experts, was “Dead, dead, dead, and I don't want it coming back from the dead.” [6]

Among Bolton’s more notable actions during this period was his successful effort to get the United States to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This bilateral treaty with the Soviet Union was the cornerstone of efforts to reduce nuclear brinksmanship, but Bolton dismissed it as a relic that impeded the development of a U.S. national missile defense system. Also significant was Bolton’s effort to block progress on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, viewed as a cornerstone of the global nonproliferation regime. [7]

In mid-2001, Bolton also tried to sabotage negotiations at the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, opposing any initiative to regulate this kind of trade—or any effort that would “abrogate the constitutional right to bear arms.” Accompanying Bolton to the conference were members of the National Rifle Association (NRA).” [8]

Speaking before an audience at the Heritage Foundation in May 2002, Bolton argued that Cuba should be included among the “axis of evil” countries because of its alleged development of biowarfare capacity. Cuba is world renowned for its biomedical industry, but according to Bolton the industry was concealing a WMD project. Providing no evidence for his allegations, Bolton said that Cuba was involved in the sales of illicit biowarfare technology in part as a way to boost its cash-short economy. Other administration officials, when pressed, declined to support Bolton's accusations. [9] Bolton never complied with congressional demands to provide documentation on his Cuba assertion. A congressional investigation of Cuba's alleged WMD program found no evidence supporting Bolton's assertions. [10]

In July 2003, during the run-up to the six-party talks with North Korea, Bolton described North Korean President Kim Jong Il as the “tyrannical dictator” of a country where “life is a hellish nightmare.” North Korea responded in kind, saying that “such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks. … We have decided not to consider him as an official of the U.S. administration any longer nor to deal with him.” The State Department sent a replacement for Bolton to the talks. [11]

After Condoleezza Rice become U.S. secretary of state at the outset of Bush’s second term, Bolton expressed an interest in becoming deputy secretary of state. Rice, however, selected Bolton as ambassador to the UN, “thus appointing to this unique post the U.S. official most publicly contemptuous of the world organization,” wrote Brian Urquhart. [12]

Bolton served as UN ambassador from August 2005—when President Bush gave him a recess appointment after the Senate had blocked his nomination—to January 2007. His resignation, announced in December 2006, came at the end of a controversial tenure that was marked by severe criticism from U.S. senators and international diplomats. His resignation also came fewer than three weeks after President Bush resubmitted for a second time in six months Bolton's nomination for Senate confirmation.

During his first confirmation hearings, Bolton's record as undersecretary of state came under intense criticism, particularly regarding his contacts with Israel. [13] According to news reports, including The Forward, Bolton met with officials of Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad. without first seeking “country clearance” from the State Department. [14] In 2000, after Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons to assassinate top Hamas activist Salah Shehada, Bolton also allegedly used his position as the Bush administration's top arms control official to shield Israel from charges of violating U.S. laws against using U.S. arms for “nondefensive” purposes. In the incident on July 23, 2000, Israel's air force used a U.S.-made F-16 bomber to drop a one-ton bomb on a house in a densely populated part of Gaza where the Hamas leader was staying. Fourteen civilians died along with Shehada, and more than 100 were injured. Senate staffers investigating Bolton found that he prevented a State Department memo accusing Israel of violating U.S. arms-export laws from reaching the desk of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. [15]

In July 2006, after the president resubmitted Bolton's nomination, there was hope among Bolton supporters that some key senators had gradually warmed to the nomination, raising the possibility of a successful confirmation. Important among these was Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), who initially opposed Bolton but wrote in a July 20 Washington Post op-ed that he now felt differently: “I cannot imagine a worse message to send to the terrorists—and to other nations deciding whether to engage in this effort—than to drag out a possible renomination process or even replace the person our president has entrusted to lead our nation at the United Nations at a time when we are working on these historic objectives.” [16]

By that stage, however, opposition to Bolton in and out of the United States had grown tremendously. In late July 2006, the New York Times reported deep scorn for Bolton among UN ambassadors. According to the Times, “[M]any diplomats say they see Mr. Bolton as a stand-in for the arrogance of the administration itself.” And rather than furthering his stated mission of UN reform, according to the Times, “envoys say he has in fact endangered that effort by alienating traditional allies. They say he combatively asserts American leadership, contests procedures at the mannerly, rules-bound United Nations, and then shrugs off the organization when it does not follow his lead.” One unnamed UN ambassador “with close ties” to the administration said: “He's lost me as an ally now, and that's what many other ambassadors who consider themselves friends of the United States are saying.” [17]

One of Bolton’s more controversial acts as ambassador came in 2005, when he sabotaged efforts to complete a joint UN declaration in connection with the UN's sixtieth anniversary. According to Brian Urquhart, “UN delegations, including the United States and the Secretariat, had for the previous six months been working on this document, which originally contained a fairly ambitious mixture of global objectives and UN reform proposals. Bolton's seven hundred or so amendments, designed, he believed, to increase the influence and reflect the interests of the United States, caused considerable confusion and resentment and reopened many disagreements that had previously been resolved. Among other things, he insisted that there be no mention of the Millennium Development Goals to eradicate global poverty, which the US had supported in 2000. (Condoleezza Rice overruled Bolton on this at the last minute.) Bolton also insisted on the elimination of any mention of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the ICC, and global warming." [18]

In accepting Bolton's resignation in December 2006, Bush blamed a “handful” of senators who were determined to block a full Senate vote on the nomination. [19]

Nearly a year after his resignation, Bolton published a memoir about his experience as UN ambassador entitled Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad. In the book, Bolton argues that his resignation was not about his policies or performance, but “whether I was a nice person, thereby inviting every person in government whom I had ever defeated in a policy battle, of whom there were many, to turn the issue into one of personal disparagement.” [20]

 

On the Issues

In law school at Yale and throughout his career, Bolton earned a reputation as abrasive, astute, humorless, and relentless in the pursuit of his political agenda, a major focus of which has been to free U.S. military power from international constraint. In his office at the State Department, Bolton displayed a mock grenade with the label: “To John Bolton—World's Greatest Reaganite.” [21]

In a 1997 AEI publication titled “U.S. Isn't Legally Obligated to Pay the UN,” Bolton articulated his dismissive view of international treaties. “Treaties are law only for U.S. domestic purposes,” he wrote. “In their international operation, treaties are simply political obligations.” [22]

Since the mid-1990s, Bolton has led the attack against the International Criminal Court (ICC). In a 1988 National Interest article, Bolton argued that signing the ICC would make the “president, the cabinet officers who comprise the National Security Council, and other senior civilian and military leaders responsible for our defense and foreign policy … the potential targets of the politically unaccountable Prosecutor in Rome.” In 1998, as AEI’s senior vice president, Bolton described the ICC as “a product of fuzzy-minded romanticism [that] is not just naïve, but dangerous.”

As undersecretary of state under Colin Powell, Bolton was given the task of officially rescinding the U.S. signature on the treaty, which he later called “the happiest moment in my government service.” [23]

Bolton has long dismissed the legitimacy of the United Nations. In a 1994 speech at the liberal World Federalist Association, Bolton declared, “There is no such thing as the United Nations,” infamously adding: “If the UN secretary building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.” [24]

Bolton also has been an outspoken hawk on U.S. policy in the Middle East, combatively supporting policies aimed at ensuring his militarist view of Israeli security. Since the mid-1990s, he has been closely associated with a number of neoconservative organizations and pressure groups tied to Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, including AEI, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf.

JINSA works to build “strategic ties” between Israel, the U.S. military and U.S. military contractors, and Bolton served on its board of advisers before joining the administration. Other Bush administration figures associated with this organization included Cheney, Douglas Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Two months before the Iraq invasion, Bolton traveled to Jerusalem to meet with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to discuss strategies for “preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.” Apparently, the agenda did not concern Israel as the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Instead, the undersecretary focused on the Bush administration's disarmament targets following the planned invasion of Iraq. Shortly after the visit, Bolton said that once regime change in Iraq is complete, “It will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea.” [25]

As U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Bolton continued to champion controversial Israeli military activities. In early July 2006, he spearheaded opposition to a proposed UN Security Council resolution that would have called for Israel to end its attacks and its “disproportionate use of force” in the Gaza Strip. In October 2004, Bolton vetoed a measure calling for Israel to end all military operations in northern Gaza.

On July 15, 2006, Bolton also blocked Security Council consideration of a ceasefire resolution in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. In a Fox News interview, Bolton commented: “What our job is in New York is to make sure that that right of self-defense is not abridged arbitrarily. But also, to try and do what we can to help the Lebanese government, which was elected democratically, and to see if we can help remove the cancer.” [26]

Bolton has characterized Israel's campaigns in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon as part of the “global war on terrorism.” Rejecting criticism of Israel's 2006 bombing of Lebanon and rising calls for a ceasefire, Bolton said there is “no moral equivalence” between Lebanese civilian casualties of Israeli bombing and Israelis killed by “malicious terrorist acts.” [27]

In late 2009, Bolton joined a chorus of hawkish voices—including UN Watch and the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg—in criticizing the UN Human Rights Council’s “Goldstone Report” detailing war crimes committed by both sides during Israel’s 2008-2009 military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Bolton called the report’s conclusion that Israel targeted civilians in Gaza an attempt “to criminalize Israel's strategy of crippling Hamas.” [28]

Bolton was also one of the administration's leading hawks on Asia policy and strongest advocates of Taiwan, where he has had close professional and personal ties. According to an investigative report by the Washington Post, Bolton was on the payroll of the Taiwanese government before joining the Bush administration. [29] Bolton also received $30,000 for “research papers on UN membership issues involving Taiwan” at the same time he was promoting diplomatic recognition of Taiwan before various congressional committees. [30]

In a 1999 Weekly Standard article, Bolton wrote, “Diplomatic recognition of Taiwan would be just the kind of demonstration of U.S. leadership that the region needs and that many of its people hope for. … The notion that China would actually respond with force is a fantasy.” [31]

Bolton joined a prominent group of neoconservatives and Republican Party stalwarts in signing a joint statement from PNAC and the Heritage Foundation that lambasted the Clinton administration for its failure to offer unequivocal support to Taiwan. The statement—whose signatories included Bill Kristol, Meese, Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, I. Lewis Libby, William Buckley, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Paul Weyrich, and James Woolsey—called for a state-to-state relationship with Taiwan

 

Controversies

Bolton has been closely associated, both in and out of government, with a number of political and financial controversies.

As an assistant attorney general under Edwin Meese, Bolton thwarted the Kerry Commission's efforts to obtain documentation, including Bolton's personal notes, about the Iran-Contra affair and alleged Contra drug smuggling. Working with congressional Republicans, Bolton also stonewalled congressional demands to interview Meese’s deputies regarding their role in the affair. [32]

In 1978, as an associate at the high-powered Covington law firm, Bolton worked with Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and the National Congressional Club, the senator's campaign-financing organization, to help form a new campaign finance organization called Jefferson Marketing. According to the Legal Times, Jefferson Marketing was established “as a vehicle to supply candidates with such services as advertising and direct mail without having to worry about the federal laws preventing PACs, like the Congressional Club, from contributing more than $5,000 per election to any one candidate's campaign committee.” After its formation, Jefferson Marketing became a holding company for three firms—Campaign Management Inc., Computer Operations & Mailing Professionals, and Discount Paper Brokers. [33]

In 1987 the National Congressional Club reported a debt of $900,000, with its major creditors being Richard Viguerie, Charles Black Jr., Covington and Burling, and the DC law office of Baker & Hostetler—all of which maintained good relations with the right-wing PAC despite its failure to pay. Jefferson Marketing was the Congressional Club largest creditor, with more than $676,000 owed. By the end of the decade, FEC documents showed that Helms' PAC owed Covington $111,000. But this was not considered a major concern for Covington, according to firm spokesman H. Edward Dunkelberger Jr. [34]

A decade later, Bolton was again entangled in controversial schemes to support Republican candidates, this time involving money channeled from Hong Kong and Taiwan via a “think tank” linked to the Republican National Committee (RNC). In 1995-1996 Bolton served as president of the National Policy Forum (NPF), which according to a congressional investigation functioned as an intermediary organization to funnel foreign and corporate money to Republicans. [35]

The NPF had been established in 1993 in anticipation of the 1994 general election. Founded by RNC chair Haley Barbour, the forum was organized as a nonprofit, tax-exempt education institute, although the IRS later ruled that as a subsidiary of the RNC, NPF was not entitled to tax-exempt status. A 1996 congressional investigation brought to light the role of the NPF, which reportedly channeled $800,000 in foreign money into the 1996 election cycle—after having used similar tactics to fund congressional races in 1994. [36]

When Bolton became NPF president in 1995, the forum began organizing “megaconferences” as a fundraising hook. These events brought together Republican members of congress, lobbyists, and corporate executives to discuss matters that were frequently the object of pending legislation. An NPF memo laid out the funding strategy: “NPF will continue to recruit new donors through conference sponsorships. … In order for the conferences to take place, they must pay for themselves or turn a profit. Industry and association leaders will be recruited to participate and sponsor those forums, starting at $25,000.” [37]

Corporate representatives professed surprise at the size of the contribution requests. “It's pretty astounding,” said one invitee. “If this doesn't have ‘payment for access' [to top GOP lawmakers] written all over it, I don't know what does.” [38]

Bolton also ensured that generous contributors received their money's worth. In another NPF memo, two NPF employees told Bolton that, in return for a $200,000 donation by U.S. West, the telecommunications company should be assured that its top policy issues would be incorporated into the agenda for NPF’s upcoming telecommunications “megaconference.” [39]

Bolton left his position at the NPF shortly before Congress launched its probe into whether the group illegally accepted foreign contributions. No charges were ever filed as a result of the congressional hearings. [40]