Bolton Worried About Rice Spell on Bush

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is “overwhelmingly predominant on foreign policy” within the Bush administration and has sidelined voices with differing views on how to handle Iran’s nearly imminent production of weapons grade uranium, according to former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Bolton, in a telephone interview with the Jerusalem Post yesterday, warned that the current Bush administration may not be up to the task of dealing decisively with Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. The criticisms of the administration’s handling of Iran, coming as they did from a former presidential adviser and tough-talking UN Ambassador, reveal the growth of a significant and potentially paralyzing division within the administration between President Bush’s closest confidants on foreign policy and the War on Terror. Bolton left the administration in part over the Iranian nuclear issue.

Bolton raised a blunt voice of warning, apparently hoping that drawing media attention to what he views as a dire situation may influence the administration to change course away from ineffective sanctions and act before Iran passes the nuclear “point of no return” previously identified by the IAEA. The message Bolton delivered to the Jerusalem Post interviewer was reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s warnings about Nazi Germany’s rearmament and potential danger to the world:

Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Worse still, according to Ambassador Bolton, the Bush administration does not recognize the urgency of the hour and that the options are now limited to only the possibility of regime change from within or a last-resort military intervention, and it is still clinging to the dangerous and misguided belief that sanctions can be effective.

As a consequence, Bolton said he was "very worried" about the well-being of Israel….
"The current approach of the Europeans and the Americans is not just doomed to failure, but dangerous," he said. "Dealing with [the Iranians] just gives them what they want, which is more time...

"We have fiddled away four years, in which Europe tried to persuade Iran to give up voluntarily," he complained. "Iran in those four years mastered uranium conversion from solid to gas and now enrichment to weapons grade... We lost four years to feckless European diplomacy and our options are very limited."

…Bolton lamented that the Bush administration today was "not the same" as a presumably more robust incarnation three years ago, because of what he said was now the State Department's overwhelming dominance of foreign policy. "The State Department has adopted the European view [on how to deal with Iran] and other voices have been sidelined," he said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "is overwhelmingly predominant on foreign policy."

…Bolton, who served as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security from 2001 to 2005, before taking the ambassadorial posting to the UN from August 2005 to December 2006, said the failed handling of the Iran nuclear crisis was one of the reasons he had left the Bush administration. "I felt we were watching Europe fiddling while Rome burned," he said. "It's still fiddling."

John Bolton was, only a few short months ago, one of the president’s most trusted advisers on international security issues, particularly nuclear weapons proliferation and enlisting serious allies in the War on Terror. Bolton was further appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN precisely because he was blunt and would demand accountability and reform from the UN if U.S. funding of that organization was to continue. Unfortunately, after Bolton’s condemnations of UN corruption and demands for reform were met with opposition from corrupt UN officials and nations, Democrats seized on his unpopularity and refused to confirm his appointment in the Senate. After his nomination was blocked and later withdrawn by the president, Bolton remained for a time as an adviser to the administration but never regained the president’s ear.

The cause for this is baffling for a president who is often cited for being loyal to his friends almost to a fault. President Bush seemed to distance himself at every possible turn from the unpopular (in the media and with liberals) Bolton. Instead of continuing to benefit from an experienced and knowledgeable adviser and following his own moral compass, the president instead chose to listen almost exclusively to Secretary Rice, who is in turn influenced greatly by her own State Department colleagues. As I have written previously, State has long been a den of liberalism and its current personnel are unlikely ever to recommend use of force against Iran or any other nation regardless of imminent peril to the world.

Winston Churchill became unpopular with his own party for his incessant and dire warnings of the consequences of appeasement and inaction in the face of Nazi rearmament and aggression. His party relegated him to the back bench in parliament, a humiliating demotion for an accomplished and distinguished politician. Bolton became unpopular with corrupt UN nations large and small as well as the American liberal media, was relegated to a failed appointment as UN Ambassador and was eventually shunned by his allegedly loyal president. Now Bolton, like Churchill, stands on the sidelines of history while other players execute an obviously failed game plan. To the credit of Churchill and Bolton, neither sulked off into bitter silence and withheld their expertise from public discourse. Both continued to speak out in hopes that someone would listen before it was too late. The British did not, and paid a terrible price in WWII. What price will the world pay for “fiddling” while the mullahs reach the capacity to burn Rome, London, Washington, Jerusalem, or Paris?

The most disturbing aspect of Bolton’s cry from the political wilderness is that he is not alone in calling for action against Iran, but all voices arguing logically for action are being ignored by the current administration as it continues to pursue UN sanctions or regime change. As Bolton mentioned, regime changes like the one we envision for Iran occur over time, sometimes involving the development of more than one generation of oppositionists before overthrow can be achieved. The Israeli government has already declared December 31, 2007 as the deadline after which sanctions and diplomacy should be abandoned in favor of forceful action if Iran does not dismantle its uranium enrichment program. Does the Bush administration believe that regime change is likely to occur in Iran in the next 6 months?

Liberal publications certainly don’t envision that happening anytime soon. Newsweek Magazine’s current article, “Iranians Aren’t About to Overthrow the Mullahs” makes a strong case that this option is not realistically available to the world, particularly if the world sincerely desires to prevent a nuclear Iran before the point of no return. Considering that ABC and other liberal media outlets exposed the CIA’s active program to foment unrest among Iranians toward the current regime, Iranians can now recognize those efforts for what they are, thus no unrest will result.

Bolton expressed grave concern that the Bush administration and Secretary Rice have pinned all their hopes for containing Iran on two options, UN Sanctions, and regime change. Removing regime change as a viable option in the limited time remaining before Iran enriches sufficient uranium leaves only UN sanctions as a non-military option, and sanctions have done nothing but encourage Iran to move faster toward nuclear weapons. The State Department has offered no workable alternatives to military action, and the clock is literally ticking.

The formerly “robust” Bush administration, as Bolton puts it, has been replaced with a decidedly liberal, quasi-pacifist cadre that appears to make its policy decisions based on international opinion rather than national interest or national security. Secretary Rice has advocated providing arms and funding to known Palestinian terrorist organizations over Israel’s outraged objections in order to achieve some semblance of stability there. Not surprisingly one terrorist faction wrested control from another and the American weapons have been used against the Israeli Defense Force more than any fellow Palestinian targets. The result is a decidedly unstable Palestinian populace and a further lesson that appeasement of terrorists of any stripe is a woefully ignorant foreign policy strategy.

Rice continues to press Israel to give up more territory and place itself in ever-increasing danger in the name of international opinion. She likewise continues to press the president to rely on UN sanctions to deter Iran from its stated goal to annihilate Israel and the U.S. with glowing fireballs. It is easy to see why Bolton became disillusioned with the formerly tough-talking but currently soft-peddling Secretary of State. She has the president’s ear, while Bolton was left at the altar. According to Bolton, that is dangerous for the U.S. and the world, as the fiddling continues and becomes more maddening as the centrifuges spin in Iran.

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John Bolton, Condoleeza Rice, State Department, Iran, Nuclear Weapons, Proliferation, UN Sanctions, Regime Change, Diplomacy, Bush Administration

IAEA, Dems Prefer Iran Nukes to "Warmongers"

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a highly specialized international nuclear watchdog has apparently branched out into other fields and now feels qualified to offer unsolicited military tactical advice and political policy recommendations to world governments, particularly the United States. With no access to classified intelligence obtained by the U.S. and its allies regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program development or the feasibility of dismantling it with military action, the IAEA nevertheless now presumes to tell world powers what they should and should not do in their own defense rather than sticking with the allegedly neutral task it was created to perform, namely nuclear facility inspections.

Late last week IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei warned world powers that an attack on Iran over its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons despite UN Security Council resolutions would be "an act of madness." According to the Jerusalem Post report, the indirect warnings appeared to be directed towards the United States and Israel.

El-Baradei, after offering what was clearly his personal political opinion of military action in Iran also reportedly stated that Iran would likely be operating nearly 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges by the end of July. The 3,000 centrifuge total is critical because IAEA officials have made clear in past statements that once Iran has that many centrifuges in operation, Iran will have reached a point of no return after which it could enrich uranium in quantities and enrichment levels sufficient for large-scale production of weapons-grade material.

The IAEA performed its primary function well in identifying a potential point of no return and estimating, based on inspections, when that point could be reached. Reporting the results of its inspections to the UN, however, should have been the limit of IAEA involvement in the discussions of Iran’s nuclear program. Instead, El-Baradei felt it necessary to editorialize on military and political strategies neither he nor the IAEA are privy to, or qualified to discuss. El-Baradei apparently feels that preventing Iran from completing its development of nuclear weapons would be “an act of madness,” but allowing Iran, the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism, to possess nuclear weapons would be acceptable to him.

It is beyond disconcerting that a man with such an obvious lack of common sense is responsible for inspecting the world’s nuclear facilities. Then again, many Democrats express views similar to El-Baradei’s and label conservatives who speak openly about confronting Iran before it reaches the IAEA point of no return as “warmongers.” Last week on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes, White House Adviser John Bolton (former ambassador to the UN), was a guest, and after he made a sensible and firm statement about not permitting Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, Alan Colmes attacked Bolton for being a “warmonger” because of his position on Iran. It was clear after the “debate” (and I use that term loosely) that Bolton made a much stronger case for action than Colmes did for inaction, which was based largely on personal attacks and “you got it wrong on Iraq now you want to attack Iran,” but it would be useful for Colmes and other Democrats to examine their use of the term “warmonger” in the context of Iran.

Was Winston Churchill a warmonger because while Hitler was building massive armies and weaponry Churchill was urging his disbelieving colleagues in parliament to begin arming Britain to matching levels? Churchill foresaw the danger of allowing Germany to rearm in violation of Treaty of Versailles terms, but PM Neville Chamberlain and many others in parliament dismissed Churchill’s agitations in much the same manner that Colmes berated Bolton as a warmonger. This is how Churchill was relegated to the humiliating status of "backbencher" in parliament.

Had anyone listened to the "warmonger" Churchill before Hitler began invading territories and neighboring nations in Europe, untold millions might have been spared the ravages of WWII. Iranian president Ahmadinejad shares many personality traits and racial views with Hitler, and it is not warmongering to believe the world should take him at his word when he states that no one can stop Iran from building nuclear bombs and that Israel must be annihilated in a glowing fireball. In today's world of rampant political correctness, where are the ACLU, the Democrats, and the gay and minority rights groups and their condemnations of "hate speech?" These groups seek severe penalties for "hate speech" and "hate crimes" directed toward specific races or lifestyles, but when the world's most radical anti-American and anti-Semitic regime vows to destroy a nation of Jews, the political correctness crowd stands in a puddle of its own cold sweat of cowardice and chastises conservatives who want to confront the threat before "hate speech" becomes a "hate crime" in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Is someone a warmonger whose stated goal is to prevent the ultimate weapon, a weapon with potential to kill millions with each detonation and befoul the entire world with radiation (the ultimate man-made global warming) from being produced, stored, and utilized by a radical terror-sponsoring regime? Is it warmongering to advocate tactical strikes on nuclear sites even with some civilian loss if doing so would spare millions of lives from nuclear annihilation in the name of jihad? If so, I choose the warmonger over the pacifist appeaser with no regrets.

Fortunately, our current president, regardless of what one thinks of his handling of Iraq or immigration, is no Colmes or El-Baradei. The only act of madness here would be to allow Iran to reach its point of no return and being high-level enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons. Israel has already recognized this and as reported previously on Capital Cloak, considers December 31, 2007 as the date after which sanctions and political solutions will no longer be considered sufficient action.

In the meantime, El-Baradei and the IAEA should continue inspecting facilities and reporting on the construction and operation of centrifuges in Natanz and other sites in Iran, and not move beyond that function by offering unsolicited opinions of the sanity of attacking Iran before it is too late. Each nation should consider the available intelligence, determine what it will and will not tolerate when it comes to a potentially nuclear Iran, and then take appropriate action to preserve its national interests and security. There is no nation on earth that would be immune from the fallout, literal and figurative, from a nuclear armed Iran. To allow it to happen through “peace mongering” would be a fatal act of madness.

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El-Baradei IAEA Alan Colmes John Bolton Warmonger Peace Monger Ahmadinejad Iranian Nuclear Program Centrifuges Inspections