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Can 59 Ex-U.S. Diplomats Be Wrong?

March 29, 2005

As John "Hater of All Things U.N." Bolton lurches towards his confirmation as our next Ambassador to the United Nations, some American diplomats are mounting a last-ditch effort to stop the Bolton Confirmation Train from reaching its destination. For Bolton to be confirmed, he must receive a majority vote from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats. These 59 ex-U.S. diplomats wrote a letter to the Seator Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declaring that Bolton "is the wrong man for this position." The letter lists a number of Bolton's sins committed in his current job as the State Department's senior arms control official. The letter says that Bolton has consistently opposed U.S. efforts to improve national security through arms control.

The Associated Press reports that the letter's signatories include Arthur Hartman, the ambassador to France and the Soviet Union under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and assistant secretary of state for European affairs under President Richard M. Nixon, James Leonard, the deputy ambassador to the U.N. under Carter and Gerald Ford; Princeton Lyman, ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria under Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; and Monteagle Stearns, ambassador to Greece and Ivory Coast in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations.

According to CNN,

They ticked off a number of treaties they said Bolton had opposed and said he had made "unsubstantiated claims" that Cuba and Syria were working on biological weapons.

Also, they said, Bolton once worked as a paid researcher for Taiwan and supported recognition of it as a sovereign state, and he was skeptical of U.N. peacekeeping operations.

"Given these past actions and statements, John R. Bolton cannot be an effective promoter of the U.S. national interest at the U.N.," the former diplomats concluded. "We urge you to oppose his nomination."

On April 7th, Bolton will be hauled in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for what will no doubt be a gigantic farce in which Bolton will be lauded as the perfect man to be our chief diplomat to the UN. Be sure to tune in.

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