John Bolton: Does Britain Really Want To be Belgium?

The one and only John Bolton is at it again, this time in an interview with the London Times...here's a nice bit:

When John Bolton left the United Nations, some of the fun went out of the multi-storey talking shop. No longer was the walrus-moustached rightwinger there to cast barbs at the silver-tongued bureaucrats who took pride in peddling compromises, turned a blind eye to corrupt practices and humoured dictators – the very essence of diplomacy, some might say.

Happily, Gordon Brown’s elevation of Mark Malloch Brown to be his minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, a lofty perch from which the newly minted peer will attend cabinet meetings and play the “wise eminence” to young David Miliband at the Foreign Office, has revived one of the most entertaining transatlantic grudge matches of recent years. If the hawkish former US ambassador to the UN is from Mars, the flexible former UN deputy secretary-general is from Venus. They are on different planets. {...}

“If Gordon Brown knew what he was doing when he appointed Mark Malloch Brown, it was a major signal that he wants a different relationship with the United States,” Bolton says. “If he didn’t know what he was doing, that’s not a good sign either. It symbolizes that the British government is moving to the left.”

In Washington, senior officials were rattled by Malloch Brown’s comments last weekend that Britain and America would no longer be “joined at the hip” and foreign policy would become more “impartial”. They were also taken aback that another member of Brown’s new government, Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary and fervent ally of the prime minister, had the nerve to lecture Washington on its home turf about the need for “multilateralism”.

Alexander’s spin doctors were chastised for giving anti-US briefings but Bolton says bluntly: “I guess my question would be, ‘Who’s in charge here?’ ” The anti-George Bush headlines in Britain provoked a crisis meeting between senior British officials and Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser. The transatlantic phone lines crackled with irritation. Brown, recognising the need for damage limitation, decided to rush to Washington, bringing his impending visit forward – although Downing Street claimed implausibly the dates were preordained. {...}

Far from wanting the Malloch Browns and Alexanders to pipe down, Bolton is delighted they have spoken up. “My theory is, ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom’,” he says, quoting Chairman Mao (although the Chinese leader never permitted the slightest dissent). Bolton wants the private mindset of the Labour left, the Foreign Office and the United Nations – which has bugged him for years – to be out in the open.

Malloch Brown, he points out, was “simply saying the sort of thing he used to say lurking behind closed doors in the United Nations”, where diplomats have perfected the art of “speaking with four or five faces”. It is important, he suggests, for the United States to “know exactly where the Brown government is going instead of skulking around the hallways”.

“If the Brown government wants to be more European than Atlanticist, let’s hear it. If they would rather not have a special relationship, let’s hear it.” And then comes the zinger: “If they want to be a part of Europe in the same way as Belgium and Luxembourg, let’s hear it.”

Bolton believes Britain must face the question: “Do you want to be an independent country or a county in a big Europe?” The way he tells it is guaranteed to offend our national pride, but you can’t say he hasn’t warned us. “If Britain wants to be subsumed into the European soup, the United States will have to react accordingly – and we will, make no mistake.”

Bolton is pleased that Brown is standing up to President Vladimir Putin over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, but cannot resist another dig at the prime minister. “I hope that is an indication that he is going to be tough on Iran, too.”

“I hope so,” says Bolton, unabashed. “I don’t regard the use of military force as attractive, but if the choice is a nuclear-armed Iran, there is no question that you have to come down on the side of force.”

Bolton believes the “blind persistence” of diplomacy through the EU3 nations of Britain, France and Germany has merely strengthened Iran’s hand. “What will it take to convince Europe the policy has failed? If we wait till they get a bomb, it will be too late.”

Read the rest here


I miss John Bolton. It's rare to have a public figure for whom honesty and clarity is such an obvious and integral part of their basic makeup.