Monday, April 25, 2005

Politics: More Bolton

Even Tony Blair wants nothing to do with this guy.
[MSNBC] ...On several occasions, America's closest ally in the war on terror, Britain, was irked by what U.S. and British sources say were efforts by Bolton to undermine promising diplomatic openings. Perhaps the most dramatic instance took place early in the U.S.-British talks in 2003 to force Libya to surrender its nuclear program, NEWSWEEK has learned. The Libya deal succeeded only after British officials "at the highest level" persuaded the White House to keep Bolton off the negotiating team. A crucial issue, according to sources involved in the affair, was Muammar Kaddafi's demand that if Libya abandoned its WMD program, the U.S. in turn would drop its goal of regime change. But Bolton was unwilling to support this compromise. The White House agreed to keep Bolton "out of the loop," as one source puts it. A deal was struck only after Kaddafi was reassured that Bush would settle for "policy change"—surrendering his WMD.

So, one of Bolton's alleged "successes" as the guy in charge of anti-proliferation actually occured in spite of his efforts not due to them. And as we all know, he pretty much blew it on all other non-proliferation issues (N. Korea, Iran, Pakistan, loose nukes...) as well.

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