Centerfield

Mathew,

I agree with you. It makes no sense to appoint someone who hates the UN; it's like hiring a teacher who hates children. This seems like just more red meat to the conservatives and indicates that the Administration really does not take the idea of international diplomacy seriously. Granted, the UN has serious problems, but they are not likely to be solved by someone like Bolton.

I thought Bush had made a lot of progress in his trip to Europe, but think this undermines it. Of course, if you don't care about alliances, then I guess it doesn't matter.

Both of you guys seem to pre-suppose that the serious problems the U.N. has can be solved at all. Furthermore you pre-suppose that America has the ability to solve them. I wouldn't consider either of those safe assumptions.

Personaly, I see the U.N. as little more then a playground for 3rd world petty dictators and a jobs program for proffesional bearucrats....both of whom view it as a vehicle to extort as much cash from 1st World nations as possible while trying to make the U.S. look bad. It has some facility as a forum for diplomacy but that is about it. Investing any more power or legitimacy in it then that is a serious mistake.

Furthermore, not taking the U.N. seriously is NOT synomymous with failing to take international diplomacy and alliances seriously. Countries were engaged in diplomacy and alliances long before the U.N. ever existed and would be engaged in them today if the U.N. had never been created. In fact, we're currently engaged in alot of diplomacy that has nothing to do with the U.N. and not all of it is just bi-lateral negotiations, there are alot of other international organizations (NATO, OAS, etc) that we work through.

Cengel,

I don't disagree that there are problems, or assume that American should fix them, but I think we should try.

I meant "could fix them" not should.

I think Bolton is a pretty good pick, considering the timing. Germany and France want to be our buddies again (did anyone miss their toadying during Bush's recent trip?), there's a barely containable outbreak of democracy in the Mideast, and the UN is mired in Darfur, and playing Michael Jackson in the rest of Africa. Hard on the heels of the OFF scandal, I think that the UN needs to be whipped into shape. Strike that - I mean shamed into responsible action. Bolton seems to be a decent catalyst for that.

Ayn Rand said "I do not believe that an individual should cooperate with criminals, and, for all the same reasons, I do not believe that free countries should cooperate with dictatorships." She was speaking of the Soviets at the time, but it is a fairly easy exercise to replace the USSR with any one out of the myriad of other dictatorial members of the UN.

There has to be a higher standard for admittance than just being lines on a map. As it stands, what improvements can be made when the inhibitors of positive change have equal voice with the proponents?

ChrisQ,

If we are going to follow that standard, then the US needs to withdraw its diplomats from a lot of countries and stop sending aid. We cooperate with a lot of nasty regimes, despite Bush's lofty rhetoric. If you are going to make the UN a forum for only countries we like, you've sort of defeated the purpose.

I am very surprised at the acceptance of Bolton in this thread.

I think Bolton is a pretty good pick, considering the timing

I think just the opposite. To put a hardliner with as sour an attitude not only towards the UN but towards genuine diplomacy in general in charge of both of those things for the United States is a substantial symbolic slap in the face to anyone who thought the United States would be more diplomatic in the next four years.

To send someone in so contemptuous towards international diplomacy and, quite frankly, peace, undermines the expressions of bridge-building the President has been making with Europe. And by the way, what is so wrong with Germany and France wanting to patch up broken ties? Besides, Shroeder seemed less than thrilled to have Bush come to visit him, seeing as how he ran pretty much an anty-Bush campaign for chancelor.

Furthermore, Bolton's contempt for the United Nations makes him less likely to get real reform through. He takes such a hard-liner stance that his credibility for wanting to turn the UN into anything but a "friends of America club" (if not wanting to dismantel it completely) is totally diminished.

Talking to and cooperating with unsavory folks are separate things, and I agree with the idea that the latter should stop. Negotiations are one thing, dumping money into undemocratic regimes is quite another. Bush has his policy on this, and I have mine. His just happens to carry a bit more weight (for now… “Vote ChrisO in 2008!”).

Also, I would argue that the quote never talked of that kind of isolationalism with respect to other nations (though Rand flirted heavily with the idea in her mantra of self-interest): no matter how despicable the nation. She was saying that placing these dictatorships on the same moral/political level with free states is wrong. My argument as well as hers, if I understand it correctly, against the validity of the UN as an international arbitrator is that, in essence, both the victim and the defendant serve on the jury.
So, why should democratic nations freely surrender their moral/political high ground to thugs and despots? To preserve a philosophically flawed institution? I just don’t see it.

I read that Condi Rice recommended him. Just three posts earlier we highly praised Rice on her performance so far and foreign policy management. If the nomination really moved forward because of Rice, how quickly we turn. Would it prudent to wait and see how it turns out?

Now as an aside, press story compared him to Jeanne Kirkpatrick. That was not a favorable comparison for me.

Bolton's Federalist Society comments do not necessarily reflect (and probably do not reflect) his opinion on the merits of the U.N. in theory. They can easily be taken to refer to the merits of the U.N. in current practice, which are pretty insignificant.

The U.N. has many, many problems, from the Oil-for-Food abuses to the sex abuses to its inability to take a stand against genocide in Sudan. Unfortunately, the United States is one of the few nations willing to call attention to these problems and try to correct them. Putting a soft-speaking compromiser into the position of U.N. Ambassador would not help fix them. Almost all of Europe sends such compromisers as their ambassadors. Quite frankly, somebody needs to be the bull in the china shop if any positive changes are going to be made.

Plus, I think Bolton's appointment is in fact a sign of the importance President Bush places on the U.N. Bolton is close personally to the President and clearly shares the President's and Secretary Rice's foreign policy views. President Bush has a very high opinion of Bolton, and would not waste him in a position he considered fairly insignificant. And when Bolton speaks, there will be little doubt that he is in fact speaking on behalf of the President, something which would be in grave doubt with a lesser choice than Bolton.

Pat,

He thinks so much of him that he was passed over at State and until this appointment, some where questioning if he had a roll in the administration.

Check out the LA Times piece on him:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-heilbrunn9mar09,0,3196717.story