“Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts.”
— Londo Mollari, “Ceremonies of Light and Dark”, Babylon 5

Who’s in charge?

Yesterday:

Statement from the National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton
National Security & Defense
Issued on: May 5, 2019

In response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings, the United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.

Like anyone is surprised?

In 2010:

[….]Question: …Why does the United Nations allow Iranian President Ahmadinejad to address the U.N. Assembly and then recognize his government when he frequently denies the Holocaust and says it was an elaborate falsehood circulated by Jews and Jewish friendly nations such as the U.S.?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, this, that, that’s because that’s the U.N. is. I mean, this is a, uh, this, this is, it’s not, it’s not, I think most Americans look at Ahmadinejad and the fact he is a Holocaust denier, uh, and say we shouldn’t even let him into the country. But, uh, we have agreed, uh, as a member of the United Nations through what’s called the Headquarters Agreement, obviously it’s headquartered in New York, that, uh, heads of state, foreign ministers, diplomats from any U.N. member who come to the United States to come to New York to do U.N. business will be admitted to the country. We can restrict their other activities, uh, but that’s what it, that’s what it means to, uh, have the U.N. functioning. Uh, and it’s also part of one of the basic premises of the U.N. that I think, uh, it’s, it’s very hard for us to understand, and that’s the so called principle of sovereign equality. Is that every member of the U.N. in the General Assembly is equal to every other member of the U.N. So the United States has one vote in the General Assembly and so does Palau. Uh, and, and you can go on down the list of the hundred and ninety-two member states of the U.N. The way the U.N. functions, uh, is a, is the product of decades of cultural development. Uh, and it is the way that it is and it is extraordinarily difficult to change. What that means to me is that, uh, the U.N. has very limited, uh, functionality. It can do some limited number of things well. Some of the specialized agencies of the U.N. do important humanitarian work, uh, they do important scientific work, they do, uh, work in areas that nobody even thinks about the, like the Universal Postal Union that helps handle the transfer of mail between countries, uh, and which functions with, us, essentially no attention at all. Where the U.N. doesn’t work is in the political decision making area, the field of human rights, the field of international security which should have been, uh, one of its, uh, principal responsibilities, in large part because of this culture that has developed, uh, and that, uh, basically requires treating every country just like it’s every other country. So, Fidel Castro, when he was able, would come and speak at the U.N. During the cold war you’d have dictators from all over the world. Uh, today you have, uh, uh, countries like Iran and North Korea, uh, that use the U.N. and, and, and it’s, uh, and the opportunities that presents just like any other country. Uh, we, we may find this very difficult to accept. We do find it very difficult to accept, but that’s the way the U.N. is. That doesn’t mean it’s a good thing it just means that’s the way the U.N. is and to me it indicates how limited, uh, are the benefits we’re gonna get from a system that is developed that holds those kinds of cultures. [applause]

[….]Question: …Tonight during your discussion you were talking about Iran’s developing nuclear program. I was wondering what the U.N. or the U.S. would do, um, to intervene when the, um, the, Iran’s, um, threatening Israel, um, Israel’s sovereignty? And do you think it would make a difference if Mousavi got elected in the past Iranian, um, election because most of the power lies within the theocracy and, aya, Ayatollah Khamani?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I don’t, I don’t think the election fundamentally would have changed very much. But I think that the fraud that was, uh, so visible in last year’s election, uh, actually helped demonstrate to a lot of Iranians just how, uh, illegitimate, uh, the Islamic Revolution nineteen seventy-nine has become. I think it’s a very unpopular government in many respects. And I wish the United States, both during the Bush administration and the Obama administration, had done more to supply the opposition with support so that when that fraudulent election had occurred, if we had really given them the resources we might have had an opportunity to see the regime overthrown. Uh, that didn’t happen, we didn’t give them adequate support, either in two thousand nine or in the years preceding that. Uh, and so that opportunity has slipped away and I think it will be quite some time before it comes back. The fact is that, uh, because we have engaged in, uh, now nearly eight years of diplomacy with Iran they have used that time to overcome essentially all of the complex scientific and technological obstacles that stand in the way of a nuclear weapons program. They’re very close to having a weapons capability, it’s really a matter for them when they decide they’re gonna do it. Uh, the diplomacy has failed, the sanctions have failed, uh, so I think today, uh, there are really only, uh, two options facing us with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapons. One is, and this is the most likely option, that indeed they do get nuclear weapons and we’ve got to deal with the consequences of a nuclear Iran. The only thing that will stop that is the second option, which is that some outside power uses preemptive force to strike against the nuclear weapons program, uh, and destroy as much of it as, uh, might be possible, thus setting Iran back, two, three, four, maybe more years. That that is in itself not a complete solution to the problem, but two to four years in, in this business is nearly infinity. I think there’s no chance that the Obama administration will use force. I once thought there was a chance that President Bush would use force. That obviously didn’t happen. I’m not even holding my breath on this administration. Which means that the choice, it’s a very [applause], it’s a very, it’s a very unpleasant choice for Israel, is between seeing Iran get nuclear weapons and taking preemptive action. Uh, military force here is a very unattractive, uh, outcome. It’s very risky, uh, there could be enormous, uh, potential consequences, uh, but in Israel’s case, uh, nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, uh, could bring, uh, a second Holocaust, this time a, a nuclear holocaust. And, uh, I don’t think that’s something that they want to wait and find out about. When Israel has faced, uh, a potential nuclear threat in the past it has not hesitated to act, uh, preemptively. It destroyed, uh, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in nineteen eighty-one, as I mentioned a few moments ago it destroyed the North Korean reactor in Syria, uh, in September two thousand seven. Uh, so given, given the alternative of a nuclear Iran I think the military option is very much on the table for the Israelis. I don’t know what they’re gonna do but I don’t think they have much time. Both because, uh, that Iran is increasingly close to actually having a nuclear weapons capability and because, uh, at, at some point the Russians may yet deliver the, uh, what we call the S three hundred air defense system, a very sophisticated air defense system that Israel couldn’t penetrate, uh, which would effectively eliminate the Israeli military option.

So, I think we’re very close to a decision by Israel and, uh, and the consequences that will, that will, that will flow from that. [applause]

“No blood for oil.”

Previously:

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1 (June 18, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 2 (June 20, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 3 (June 20, 2010)

Blood for oil (November 22, 2018)

A bumper sticker.

Amid a world of problems, Trump’s policy prescriptions remain opaque

….Among the rumored candidates for secretary of state, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton — both outspoken Trump supporters — are viewed as anathema by many current diplomats and as loose cannons even by many of their fellow Republicans….

John Bolton (r) [2010 file photo].

In 2010:

[John Bolton (r)]: ….But Iran is also in the grip, uh, of a, uh, of its own form of totalitarianism, in this case, religious fanaticism that has over the past several years moved into a kind of military theocracy. The real power in Iran today is held by the Revolutionary Guards which are controlled by, uh, by military officials loyal to, uh, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now, we are almost exactly today, uh, on the fifteenth of June, one year after the election in Iran last year held on June twelfth that was quite obviously stolen by Ahmadinejad. And you’ll remember the pictures of the demonstrators in Tehran and other Iranian cities going out into the streets to protest the fraud that was, uh, was so evident. And, you know, when the, when the, when the people who went out, students, middle class people, uh, all over the country, uh, they didn’t begin their protest by, uh, calling for the overthrow of the regime itself, although the regime is very unpopular. They just thought, uh, that they ought to have a free and fair election. The regime’s response was to bring the Revolutionary Guards and their militia allies, the Basiji, into the streets, uh, resulting in, uh, hundreds and hundreds of deaths of, uh, innocent civilians, students, uh, uh, shop owners, uh, regular people who had probably never demonstrated in their lives. This was the real face of the regime in Iran. It is a dictatorship. It is essentially today a military dictatorship. Uh, and so effective was it in crushing the opposition, uh, that this past weekend on the first anniversary of that fraudulent election, uh, there were almost demonstrations at all. And that reflects the unfortunate reality that the Revolutionary Guard’s power in Iran is even more entrenched then it was before, and reflects also their growing confidence that their pursuit of nuclear weapons is getting closer and closer to success.

What will this mean when Iran gets nuclear weapons? Well, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, has himself, uh, announced that it’s his desire to wipe the State of Israel off the face of earth. Uh, he has held conferences in Iran with names like “The World Without the United States and Israel.” So, he’s made his intentions pretty clear. Uh, but even if Iran doesn’t use nuclear weapons against Israel, simple having nuclear weapons will exert a profound change on the balance of power, uh, in the Middle East. Uh, and if you don’t like the price of gasoline at what it is today, imagine Iran with hegemonic control, not only over its own oil and natural gas supplies, but exerting effective control over the supplies just across the Persian Gulf, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. That kind of power, uh, in the hands of this theocratic dictatorship in Iran could have a profoundly disturbing consequence for the American economy and the economy of Western Europe and, and the world as a whole. Moreover, if Iran gets nuclear weapons, and I think it’s very close to that point, uh, I don’t think we can count on being able to contain and deter Iran as we did the Soviet Union during the cold war. I think the calculus of the Mullahs, the Ayatollahs in Iran, is very different. Say what you want about the Communists, they were atheists, and they thought they only went around once in life. They weren’t about to throw that away too quickly. But if you believe, uh, as the Ayatollahs do, that life in the hereafter is a lot better than life on Earth, it’s pretty hard to deter somebody, uh, with that kind of approach. I like to think the American view, uh, is summed up in the, uh, Kenny Chesney song, uh, “Everybody want to go to Heaven, nobody want to go now.” That’s how deterrence works for us. It doesn’t work that way with the Iranians. But, even if I’m wrong on that, and Iran could be contained and deterred, it doesn’t stop with, uh, their achieving nuclear weapons status.

Other countries in the region will respond. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others will get nuclear weapons. So, in a very short period of time, five to ten years, you could have a multi-polar nuclear Middle East which almost guarantees, uh, because of the instability that’s the consequence of that, uh, display of nuclear weapons, uh, almost guarantees that somebody will decide to strike one of their neighbors before their neighbors decide to strike them. And that level of uncertainty and risk, uh, will no doubt have profound consequences, uh, for the global price of oil and other natural resources.

Moreover, the lesson that others will draw when they see that the United States is not able to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, when they see that Iran, despite U.S. sanctions, despite four, uh, sanction resolutions in the U.N. Security Council, despite sanctions by the European Union and Japan, still Iran is able to achieve nuclear weapons status.  That will prove to every other would be proliferator, uh, that if they’re simply determined enough they too can obtain nuclear weapons.  Uh, and that will inspire the terrorists groups, too, Al Qaeda and Taliban and others. So that the risk that we see here is a world that, despite the end of the cold war, doesn’t become more stable and more peaceful, uh, it becomes at greater risk because the threat of a terrorist with a nuclear weapon or a biological or a chemical weapon is far worse, even than the threat from terrorists, uh, who brought the attacks of nine eleven….

And:

Question: …Tonight during your discussion you were talking about Iran’s developing nuclear program. I was wondering what the U.N. or the U.S. would do, um, to intervene when the, um, the, Iran’s, um, threatening Israel, um, Israel’s sovereignty? And do you think it would make a difference if Mousavi got elected in the past Iranian, um, election because most of the power lies within the theocracy and, aya, Ayatollah Khamani?

[….] [John] Bolton [(r)]: Well, I, I don’t, I don’t  think the election fundamentally would have changed very much. But I think that the fraud that was, uh, so visible in last year’s election, uh, actually helped demonstrate to a lot of Iranians just how, uh, illegitimate, uh, the Islamic Revolution nineteen seventy-nine has become. I think it’s a very unpopular government in many respects. And I wish the United States, both during the Bush administration and the Obama administration, had done more to supply the opposition with support so that when that fraudulent election had occurred, if we had really given them the resources we might have had an opportunity to see the regime overthrown. Uh, that didn’t happen, we didn’t give them adequate support, either in two thousand nine or in the years preceding that. Uh, and so that opportunity has slipped away and I think it will be quite some time before it comes back. The fact is that, uh, because we have engaged in, uh, now nearly eight years of diplomacy with Iran they have used that time to overcome essentially all of the complex scientific and technological obstacles that stand in the way of a nuclear weapons program. They’re very close to having a weapons capability, it’s really a matter for them when they decide they’re gonna do it. Uh, the diplomacy has failed, the sanctions have failed, uh, so I think today, uh, there are really only, uh, two options facing us with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapons. One is, and this is the most likely option, that indeed they do get nuclear weapons and we’ve got to deal with the consequences of a nuclear Iran. The only thing that will stop that is the second option, which is that some outside power uses preemptive force to strike against the nuclear weapons program, uh, and destroy as much of it as, uh, might be possible, thus setting Iran back, two, three, four, maybe more years. That that is in itself not a complete solution to the problem, but two to four years in, in this business is nearly infinity. I think there’s no chance that the Obama administration will use force. I once thought there was a chance that President Bush would use force. That obviously didn’t happen. I’m not even holding my breath on this administration. Which means that the choice, it’s a very [applause], it’s a very, it’s a very unpleasant choice for Israel, is between seeing Iran get nuclear weapons and taking preemptive action. Uh, military force here is a very unattractive, uh, outcome. It’s very risky, uh, there could be enormous, uh, potential consequences, uh, but in Israel’s case, uh, nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, uh, could bring, uh, a second Holocaust, this time a, a nuclear holocaust. And, uh, I don’t think that’s something that they want to wait and find out about. When Israel has faced, uh, a potential nuclear threat in the past it has not hesitated to act, uh, preemptively. It destroyed, uh, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in nineteen eighty-one, as I mentioned a few moments ago it destroyed the North Korean reactor in Syria, uh, in September two thousand seven. Uh, so given, given the alternative of a nuclear Iran I think the military option is very much on the table for the Israelis. I don’t know what they’re gonna do but I don’t think they have much time. Both because, uh, that Iran is increasingly close to actually having a nuclear weapons capability and because, uh, at, at some point the Russians may yet deliver the, uh, what we call the S three hundred air defense system, a very sophisticated air defense system that Israel couldn’t penetrate, uh, which would effectively eliminate the Israeli  military option. So, I think we’re very close to a decision by Israel and, uh, and the consequences that will, that will, that will flow from that….

There were those who truly believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction hidden in the desert sand.

….Third possibility is that he buried it in the desert somewhere. Now, hard as that is to believe, you ought to go on, uh, the Internet and find the pictures that American troops took of big fighter planes wrapped in burlap buried in the desert sands being uncovered by American bulldozers. It’s like scenes out of Planet of the Apes with wings and tail fins of Migs peering out of the desert sand. Anybody who’s crazy enough to bury Mig fighters in the desert is probably crazy enough to bury chemical weapons….

If you liked the people hanging around dubya you’re just gonna love the Donald’s posse.

Previously:

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: remarks (June 16, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 2 (June 20, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 3 (June 20, 2010)

Yesterday:

….In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, the Senate Democratic leader [Harry Reid] said no one with “any degree of intelligence” should agree with the former vice president [Dick Cheney], who strongly opposes the agreement.

“I’m sorry, I cannot hold back a smile,” Reid said just hours after Cheney delivered a stinging rebuke of the deal. “There are a lot of good reasons for this deal. But the best is that Cheney’s against it. I mean, think about this: The architect of the worst foreign policy decision in the history of America – to invade Iraq. Look what it has done. Why would anyone with any degree of intelligence agree with him?”

[….]

Indeed, why?

Meanwhile, Missouri 4th Congressional District Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) can’t help herself:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Congress votes this week on the President’s #IranDeal. Read why I am against this bad deal. #NoNuclearIran [….[ 12:01 PM – 8 Sep 2015

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): it all depends on which questions you choose to ask (May 13, 2015)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): on the Iran nuclear deal – Harrisonville, MO – August 14, 2015 (August 15, 2015)

Previously: All you need to know about Mitt Romney’s views on foreign policy (March 19, 2012)

Molly Ivins, almost nine years ago:

Molly Ivins

What WMD’s?

April 29, 2003

….In the weeks before Gulf War II, the United States told the world Saddam Hussein was hiding mobile chemical laboratories, drones fitted with poison sprays, 15 to 20 Scud missile launchers, 5,000 gallons of anthrax, several tons of VX nerve gas agent and between 100 tons and 500 tons of other toxins, including botulinun, mustard gas, ricin and Sarin. Also, we said he had over 30,000 illegal munitions. So far, we have found bupkes.

The United States, which insisted it could not give United Nations weapons inspectors so much as 10 days more to search, so dangerous were these WMDs, now says it needs months to find them. In the meantime, we are clearly being set up to put the whole issue of WMDs down the memory hole. Here are the lines of argument advanced by the administration so far:

— Saddam did have WMDs, but in a wily plot, he poured them all down a drain right before we invaded, just so he could embarrass Bush.

— The WMDs are still there, but in some remote desert hiding place we may never be able to find. “Just because we haven’t found anything doesn’t mean it wasn’t there,” one Pentagon source told the Los Angeles Times. Right.

— Saddam had WMDs, but he handed them off to the Syrians just before we came in. Or maybe it was to the Iranians.

— Well, maybe Saddam didn’t have huge stores of WMDs, but he had critical blueprints, weapons parts and, most ominously, “precursor chemicals,” so he could have manufactured WMDs.

— Well, maybe he didn’t have WMDs ready to deliver. The Pentagon has already backtracked on the Scud-missile claim.

So far, U.S. “mobile exploitation teams” and other special forces have visited 90 of the top 150 “hot” sites identified by U.S. intelligence. No wonder Hans Blix, head of the U.N. inspection team, says what he got from American intelligence was “garbage.”

I’m sorry, but this does make a difference. The problem is called credibility….

[emphasis added]

Ambassador John Bolton, in June 2010, about the same thing:

….Question: …Now, I notice you’ve been putting down the current administration quite a bit. [crosstalk] I recall…

Ambassador Bolton: Not really, I haven’t even gotten started yet.

Question: Oh, okay, well,[applause, cheers]…

Now, now going back to two thousand three when we went into the Iraq war, if I recall, you and the Bush administration supported the Iraq war quite substantially. Now, what is your justification for going into the war since they had no nuclear weapons and then themselves had no threat to the United States as a whole? [applause, cheers]

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I view, I view the regime of Saddam Hussein as a threat to international peace and security. And I felt that, uh, after the first gulf war, uh, there was unfinished business in leaving him in power. Uh, now don’t get me wrong, when President Bush forty-one, uh, stopped the, uh, military action and, uh, when he did and essentially took the steps that allowed Saddam to remain in power, at the time I thought that was the right course of action. Uh, and it was only with the passage of time that I realized that, uh, that had been a mistake. Uh, so I view the decision, uh, in two thousand three to overthrow Saddam, eh, effectively as a continuation of the first Persian Gulf War. Uh, and this is not unusual in history, in Europe they had the Thirty-Years War, uh, things go on for a long period of time. But essentially, removing Saddam Hussein was important to remove a threat, uh, that he posed, he and his regime posed in the region and around the world.

Now, the question of whether the regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, uh, I think is one that has been badly misunderstood. There is simply no question that had Saddam accomplished his objectives of eliminating the, uh, U.N. sanctions, uh, and getting U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq, which would have happened as soon as the sanctions regime was lifted entirely, uh, he would have gone back to the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. During the entire period of time after, uh, the nineteen ninety nineteen ninety-one, uh, war he kept, on his payroll, uh, thousands of nuclear scientists and technicians. He called them his nuclear mujahedeen. And there’s no doubt that once the inspectors were gone he would have gone back to his efforts to, uh, achieve nuclear weapons.

Uh, now some people have said that the, uh, failure to find, uh, nuclear weapons or chemical weapons, uh, in Iraq was, was either because the administration distorted what his capabilities were, or that it was an intelligence failure and that, uh, what we know today proves that we shouldn’t have gone to war against Iraq. Well, I can tell you it was not an exaggeration, uh, because you can’t do that in Washington and not read about it in the paper the next day. Nor was it an intelligence failure. The fear that we had about Iraq’s, particularly its chemical weapons, came not from intelligence but came from Iraq’s own declarations in nineteen ninety-one as a condition of the ceasefire after the first Persian Gulf War. Iraq claimed that it had enormous quantities of chemical weapons and under, uh, uh, Resolution Six Eighty-Seven, the so called Security Council Ceasefire Resolution, Iraq was required, uh, to, uh, destroy the weapons that it declared, uh, or to prove to the U.N. weapons inspectors that it had destroyed the weapons. So when the weapons inspectors went in and they began to destroy, uh, various aspects of, of Saddam’s nuclear program and his ballistic missile program, uh, the U.N. weapons inspectors said to the Iraqi’s, show us the chemical weapons that you declared so that we can begin destroying them. Uh, and the Iraqi’s said in response, well, that’s okay we’ve already destroyed them all. And the U.N. weapons inspectors said, okay fine, show us the places where you destroyed the chemical weapons, show us the records how the destruction took place, introduce us to the scientists and technicians who carried out the destruction so that we can interview them and verify that in fact you have destroyed these weapons that you declared. That you declared. And the Iraqi’s said, we’re not gonna show you the locations, we’re not gonna show you the documents, we’re not gonna introduce you to the people who accomplished it. Now, I will tell you there was not anybody involved in dealing with Iraq who didn’t believe that, uh, the Iraqis were flat out lying about having destroyed all those weapons. Uh, they, they had declared that they had the weapons and they produced no proof, uh, to support their assertions that they had destroyed the weapons. So, everybody believed, everybody believed that the weapons still existed. Uh, and in fact, that’s why when American and other coalition forces went in to Iraq they took with them chemical weapons protective gear which is incredibly bulky, cumbersome, and in the middle of, uh, the, uh, Iraqi summer, extremely hot. No responsible American general would burden his troops with that chemical weapons protective gear unless they thought that there was a real risk that Saddam would use chemical weapons. Uh, and in fact, many people around the world argued against the American attack precisely on the grounds that it would provoke Saddam to use the chemical weapons that he had declared.

Uh, now, in fact, uh no chemical weapons were used during the second Persian Gulf War and we have not located, uh, anything but little bits and traces of the chemical weapons capability. Now that means one
of several things. First, that somehow or another Saddam had destroyed the chemical weapons. But there is simply no, uh, uh, no evidence anywhere that that’s happened. It’s not something that you just kind of dump into the Tigris and Euphrates River, uh, unless you want to kill everything in it for hundreds of miles. Uh, the, if you look at the way the United States is destroying its own chemical weapons supplies it’s in very tightly controlled  circumstances. This is an extraordinarily hazardous, uh, thing to do, uh, with great risk of, uh, uh, of people getting killed if the process goes wrong. So, to have destroyed the, uh, supplies that Iraq claimed would have, there would have been evidence of it and we’ve found no such evidence. Second possibility is he shipped it out of the country. We just don’t know whether he did or not. Third possibility is that he buried it in the desert somewhere. Now, hard as that is to believe, you ought to go on, uh, the Internet and find the pictures that American troops took of big fighter planes wrapped in burlap buried in the desert sands being uncovered by American bulldozers. It’s like scenes out of Planet of the Apes with wings and tail fins of Migs peering out of the desert sand. Anybody who’s crazy enough to bury Mig fighters in the desert is probably crazy enough to bury chemical weapons. [applause] But we haven’t, we haven’t found that. So, so that, please, don’t go away, I’m not done yet. [laughter] That leaves the possibility that Saddam was lying about his chemical weapons capabilities in nineteen ninety-one when he made the declarations to the United Nations. That, that may be the most likely outcome. That shows how profoundly, uh, deceptive and threatening this regime was. But, but let’s be clear, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was a plus for the United States and the world, it has, it has removed one of the most dangerous regimes, uh, in the Middle East, it has given the Israeli [sic] people the chance for self government, which they hadn’t had in their entire history, uh, and I think that it will lead, uh, to, to greater peace and security for the United States. [applause, cheers]….

[underline emphasis added]

Oh, I see, you’ve already met.

Yep, credibility. That’s the core of Mitt Romney’s (r) views on foreign policy.

Who do you think is going to run the show? From the campaign:

Mitt Romney Announces Support of Ambassador John Bolton

January 12, 2012

Location

Boston, MA

United States

Mitt Romney announced today the support of Ambassador John R. Bolton.

“I am honored to have John’s support,” said Mitt Romney. “John has been a staunch defender of U.S. interests and values, both while he was in and out of government. John’s wisdom, clarity, and courage are qualities that should typify our foreign policy. I look forward to consulting with him as we campaign to restore America’s standing abroad and ensure that this century is an American Century.”

“Of all the candidates, Mitt Romney possesses the strongest vision for America’s leadership role in the world, and I am proud to endorse him,” Ambassador Bolton said. “President Obama has sapped America’s credibility abroad, weakened our military and failed to lead on issues vital to U.S. national security. President Obama has left America exposed to ever increasing threats. Mitt Romney will restore our military, repair relations with our closest allies, and ensure that no adversary-including Iran-ever questions American resolve.”

Background on Ambassador John R. Bolton

John R. Bolton was the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. From 2001 to 2005, he was Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.  Ambassador Bolton also served in the George H.W. Bush Administration as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, and in the Reagan Administration as Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice and General Counsel at USAID. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Of Counsel at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis.

###

[emphasis added]

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, this is what they want to do when they return to power:

Previously:

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: photos (June 15, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: remarks (June 16, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1 (June 18, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 2 (June 19, 2010)

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 3 (June 20, 2010)

….Ambassador John Bolton: Uh, but let’s, let’s follow the North Korean threat back into the Middle East. I mentioned Iran a moment ago. We will find out, I am certain, that that reactor the North Koreans were building in Syria, uh, was actually financed by Iran. And it was probably a three way joint venture, because after all, Iran has the same incentive that North Korea does to hide its nuclear weapons program from, uh, international inspection.  Now Iran is a very different country than North Korea. It has enormous reserves of oil and natural gas. It has an ancient culture. Uh, it has a high degree, uh, of education for its citizens. It’s a very sophisticated country, even under the rule of the Islamic revolution of nineteen seventy-nine.  And Iran, uh, sees itself as a major player, uh, in the Middle East, uh, within the struggle inside of Islam for dominance. And it aspires to be, uh, a global power. That’s one reason why its pursuit of nuclear weapons, in many respects, uh, is even more dangerous than North Korea’s, because Iran is not dependent, uh, on the outside world, in the case of North Korea, dependent on China. Iran could be uh, completely self sufficient and indeed is a major international supplier of oil and natural gas.

But Iran is also in the grip, uh, of a, uh, of its own form of totalitarianism, in this case, religious fanaticism that has over the past several years moved into a kind of military theocracy. The real power in Iran today is held by the Revolutionary Guards which are controlled by, uh, by military officials loyal to, uh, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now, we are almost exactly today, uh, on the fifteenth of June, one year after the election in Iran last year held on June twelfth that was quite obviously stolen by Ahmadinejad. And you’ll remember the pictures of the demonstrators in Tehran and other Iranian cities going out into the streets to protest the fraud that was, uh, was so evident. And, you know, when the, when the, when the people who went out, students, middle class people, uh, all over the country, uh, they didn’t begin their protest by, uh, calling for the overthrow of the regime itself, although the regime is very unpopular. They just thought, uh, that they ought to have a free and fair election. The regime’s response was to bring the Revolutionary Guards and their militia allies, the Basiji, into the streets, uh, resulting in, uh, hundreds and hundreds of deaths of, uh, innocent civilians, students, uh, uh, shop owners, uh, regular people who had probably never demonstrated in their lives. This was the real face of the regime in Iran. It is a dictatorship. It is essentially today a military dictatorship. Uh, and so effective was it in crushing the opposition, uh, that this past weekend on the first anniversary of that fraudulent election, uh, there were almost demonstrations at all. And that reflects the unfortunate reality that the Revolutionary Guard’s power in Iran is even more entrenched then it was before, and reflects also their growing confidence that their pursuit of nuclear weapons is getting closer and closer to success.

What will this mean when Iran gets nuclear weapons? Well, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, has himself, uh, announced that it’s his desire to wipe the State of Israel off the face of earth. Uh, he has held conferences in Iran with names like “The World Without the United States and Israel.” So, he’s made his intentions pretty clear. Uh, but even if Iran doesn’t use nuclear weapons against Israel, simple having nuclear weapons will exert a profound change on the balance of power, uh, in the Middle East. Uh, and if you don’t like the price of gasoline at what it is today, imagine Iran with hegemonic control, not only over its own oil and natural gas supplies, but exerting effective control over the supplies just across the Persian Gulf, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. That kind of power, uh, in the hands of this theocratic dictatorship in Iran could have a profoundly disturbing consequence for the American economy and the economy of Western Europe and, and the world as a whole. Moreover, if Iran gets nuclear weapons, and I think it’s very close to that point, uh, I don’t think we can count on being able to contain and deter Iran as we did the Soviet Union during the cold war. I think the calculus of the Mullahs, the Ayatollahs in Iran, is very different. Say what you want about the Communists, they were atheists, and they thought they only went around once in life. They weren’t about to throw that away too quickly. But if you believe, uh, as the Ayatollahs do, that life in the hereafter is a lot better than life on Earth, it’s pretty hard to deter somebody, uh, with that kind of approach. I like to think the American view, uh, is summed up in the, uh, Kenny Chesn
ey song, uh, “Everybody want to go to Heaven, nobody want to go now.” That’s how deterrence works for us. It doesn’t work that way with the Iranians. But, even if I’m wrong on that, and Iran could be contained and deterred, it doesn’t stop with, uh, their achieving nuclear weapons status.

Other countries in the region will respond. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others will get nuclear weapons. So, in a very short period of time, five to ten years, you could have a multi-polar nuclear Middle East which almost guarantees, uh, because of the instability that’s the consequence of that, uh, display of nuclear weapons, uh, almost guarantees that somebody will decide to strike one of their neighbors before their neighbors decide to strike them. And that level of uncertainty and risk, uh, will no doubt have profound consequences, uh, for the global price of oil and other natural resources.

Moreover, the lesson that others will draw when they see that the United States is not able to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, when they see that Iran, despite U.S. sanctions, despite four, uh, sanction resolutions in the U.N. Security Council, despite sanctions by the European Union and Japan, still Iran is able to achieve nuclear weapons status.  That will prove to every other would be proliferator, uh, that if they’re simply determined enough they too can obtain nuclear weapons.  Uh, and that will inspire the terrorists groups, too, Al Qaeda and Taliban and others. So that the risk that we see here is a world that, despite the end of the cold war, doesn’t become more stable and more peaceful, uh, it becomes at greater risk because the threat of a terrorist with a nuclear weapon or a biological or a chemical weapon is far worse, even than the threat from terrorists, uh, who brought the attacks of nine eleven….

….Question: …Tonight during your discussion you were talking about Iran’s developing nuclear program. I was wondering what the U.N. or the U.S. would do, um, to intervene when the, um, the, Iran’s, um, threatening Israel, um, Israel’s sovereignty? And do you think it would make a difference if Mousavi got elected in the past Iranian, um, election because most of the power lies within the theocracy and, aya, Ayatollah Khamani?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I don’t, I don’t  think the election fundamentally would have changed very much. But I think that the fraud that was, uh, so visible in last year’s election, uh, actually helped demonstrate to a lot of Iranians just how, uh, illegitimate, uh, the Islamic Revolution nineteen seventy-nine has become. I think it’s a very unpopular government in many respects. And I wish the United States, both during the Bush administration and the Obama administration, had done more to supply the opposition with support so that when that fraudulent election had occurred, if we had really given them the resources we might have had an opportunity to see the regime overthrown. Uh, that didn’t happen, we didn’t give them adequate support, either in two thousand nine or in the years preceding that. Uh, and so that opportunity has slipped away and I think it will be quite some time before it comes back. The fact is that, uh, because we have engaged in, uh, now nearly eight years of diplomacy with Iran they have used that time to overcome essentially all of the complex scientific and technological obstacles that stand in the way of a nuclear weapons program. They’re very close to having a weapons capability, it’s really a matter for them when they decide they’re gonna do it. Uh, the diplomacy has failed, the sanctions have failed, uh, so I think today, uh, there are really only, uh, two options facing us with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapons. One is, and this is the most likely option, that indeed they do get nuclear weapons and we’ve got to deal with the consequences of a nuclear Iran. The only thing that will stop that is the second option, which is that some outside power uses preemptive force to strike against the nuclear weapons program, uh, and destroy as much of it as, uh, might be possible, thus setting Iran back, two, three, four, maybe more years. That that is in itself not a complete solution to the problem, but two to four years in, in this business is nearly infinity. I think there’s no chance that the Obama administration will use force. I once thought there was a chance that President Bush would use force. That obviously didn’t happen. I’m not even holding my breath on this administration. Which means that the choice, it’s a very [applause], it’s a very, it’s a very unpleasant choice for Israel, is between seeing Iran get nuclear weapons and taking preemptive action. Uh, military force here is a very unattractive, uh, outcome. It’s very risky, uh, there could be enormous, uh, potential consequences, uh, but in Israel’s case, uh, nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, uh, could bring, uh, a second Holocaust, this time a, a nuclear holocaust. And, uh, I don’t think that’s something that they want to wait and find out about. When Israel has faced, uh, a potential nuclear threat in the past it has not hesitated to act, uh, preemptively. It destroyed, uh, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in nineteen eighty-one, as I mentioned a few moments ago it destroyed the North Korean reactor in Syria, uh, in September two thousand seven. Uh, so given, given the alternative of a nuclear Iran I think the military option is very much on the table for the Israelis. I don’t know what they’re gonna do but I don’t think they have much time. Both because, uh, that Iran is increasingly close to actually having a nuclear weapons capability and because, uh, at, at some point the Russians may yet deliver the, uh, what we call the S three hundred air defense system, a very sophisticated air defense system that Israel couldn’t penetrate, uh, which would effectively eliminate the Israeli  military option. So, I think we’re very close to a decision by Israel and, uh, and the consequences that will, that will, that will flow from that. [applause]….

Any questions?

With right wingnuts it’s considered a feature, not a bug.

Newt Gingrich (r): ….If he will accept it I will ask John Bolton to be Secretary of State, [applause] But I will only appoint him if he will agree that his first job is the complete and thorough transformation of the State Department and the replacement of the current Foreign Service culture with a new entrepreneurial and aggressive culture dedicated to the proposition that defending freedom and defending America is the first business of the State Department, not appeasing our opponents. [applause]….

Purges and shooting from the hip. Who needs actual competence at the State Department?

John Bolton (r) in 2002:

01 November 2002

Bolton Says Rogue States Seek Weapons of Mass Destruction, November 1, 2002

[….]

Following is the text of Bolton’s remarks:

(begin transcript)

The International Aspects of Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction

By the Honorable John R. Bolton Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, United States Department of State

To the Second Global Conference on Nuclear, Bio/Chem Terrorism: Mitigation and Response

Sponsored by The Hudson Institute

Washington, DC

[….]

….Without question, the states most aggressively seeking to acquire WMD and their means of delivery are Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, followed by Libya and Syria. It is no coincidence that these states, which are uniformly hostile to the United States, as well as to many of our friends and allies, are among the ones we identify as state sponsors of terrorism….

….Iraq, despite U.N. sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq’s procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand. We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material — whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability — it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year. It has rebuilt its civilian chemical infrastructure and renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin and VX. It actively maintains all key aspects of its offensive BW [biological weapons] program. And in terms of its support for terrorism, we have established that Iraq has permitted al-Qaeda to operate within its territory. As the president said recently, “The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations. And there are al-Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq.” The president has made his position on Iraq eminently clear, and in the coming weeks and months we shall see what we shall see….

John Bolton (r) in 2010:

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 3 (June 20, 2010)

Question: …Now, I notice you’ve been putting down the current administration quite a bit. [crosstalk] I recall…

Ambassador Bolton: Not really, I haven’t even gotten started yet.

Question: Oh, okay, well,[applause, cheers]…

Now, now going back to two thousand three when we went into the Iraq war, if I recall, you and the Bush administration supported the Iraq war quite substantially. Now, what is your justification for going into the war since they had no nuclear weapons and then themselves had no threat to the United States as a whole? [applause, cheers]

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I view, I view the regime of Saddam Hussein as a threat to international peace and security. And I felt that, uh, after the first gulf war, uh, there was unfinished business in leaving him in power. Uh, now don’t get me wrong, when President Bush forty-one, uh, stopped the, uh, military action and, uh, when he did and essentially took the steps that allowed Saddam to remain in power, at the time I thought that was the right course of action. Uh, and it was only with the passage of time that I realized that, uh, that had been a mistake. Uh, so I view the decision, uh, in two thousand three to overthrow Saddam, eh, effectively as a continuation of the first Persian Gulf War. Uh, and this is not unusual in history, in Europe they had the Thirty-Years War, uh, things go on for a long period of time. But essentially, removing Saddam Hussein was important to remove a threat, uh, that he posed, he and his regime posed in the region and around the world.

Now, the question of whether the regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, uh, I think is one that has been badly misunderstood. There is simply no question that had Saddam accomplished his objectives of eliminating the, uh, U.N. sanctions, uh, and getting U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq, which would have happened as soon as the sanctions regime was lifted entirely, uh, he would have gone back to the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. During the entire period of time after, uh, the nineteen ninety nineteen ninety-one, uh, war he kept, on his payroll, uh, thousands of nuclear scientists and technicians. He called them his nuclear mujahedeen. And there’s no doubt that once the inspectors were gone he would have gone back to his efforts to, uh, achieve nuclear weapons.

Uh, now some people have said that the, uh, failure to find, uh, nuclear weapons or chemical weapons, uh, in Iraq was, was either because the administration distorted what his capabilities were, or that it was an intelligence failure and that, uh, what we know today proves that we shouldn’t have gone to war against Iraq. Well, I can tell you it was not an exaggeration, uh, because you can’t do that in Washington and not read about it in the paper the next day. Nor was it an intelligence failure. The fear that we had about Iraq’s, particularly its chemical weapons, came not from intelligence but came from Iraq’s own declarations in nineteen ninety-one as a condition of the ceasefire after the first Persian Gulf War. Iraq claimed that it had enormous quantities of chemical weapons and under, uh, uh, Resolution Six Eighty-Seven, the so called Security Council Ceasefire Resolution, Iraq was required, uh, to, uh, destroy the weapons that it declared, uh, or to prove to the U.N. weapons inspectors that it had destroyed the weapons. So when the weapons inspectors went in and they began to destroy, uh, various aspects of, of Saddam’s nuclear program and his ballistic missile program, uh, the U.N. weapons inspectors said to the Iraqi’s, show us the chemical weapons that you declared so that we can begin destroying them. Uh, and the Iraqi’s said in response, well, that’s okay we’ve already destroyed them all. And the U.N. weapons inspectors said, okay fine, show us the places where you destroyed the chemical weapons, show us the records how the destruction took place, introduce us to the scientists and technicians who carried out the destruction so that we can interview them and verify that in fact you have destroyed these weapons that you declared. That you declared. And the Iraqi’s said, we’re not gonna show you the locations, we’re not gonna show you the documents, we’re not gonna introduce you to the people who accomplished it. Now, I will tell you there was n
ot anybody involved in dealing with Iraq who didn’t believe that, uh, the Iraqis were flat out lying about having destroyed all those weapons. Uh, they, they had declared that they had the weapons and they produced no proof, uh, to support their assertions that they had destroyed the weapons. So, everybody believed, everybody believed that the weapons still existed. Uh, and in fact, that’s why when American and other coalition forces went in to Iraq they took with them chemical weapons protective gear which is incredibly bulky, cumbersome, and in the middle of, uh, the, uh, Iraqi summer, extremely hot. No responsible American general would burden his troops with that chemical weapons protective gear unless they thought that there was a real risk that Saddam would use chemical weapons. Uh, and in fact, many people around the world argued against the American attack precisely on the grounds that it would provoke Saddam to use the chemical weapons that he had declared.

Uh, now, in fact, uh no chemical weapons were used during the second Persian Gulf War and we have not located, uh, anything but little bits and traces of the chemical weapons capability. Now that means one of several things. First, that somehow or another Saddam had destroyed the chemical weapons. But there is simply no, uh, uh, no evidence anywhere that that’s happened. It’s not something that you just kind of dump into the Tigris and Euphrates River, uh, unless you want to kill everything in it for hundreds of miles. Uh, the, if you look at the way the United States is destroying its own chemical weapons supplies it’s in very tightly controlled  circumstances. This is an extraordinarily hazardous, uh, thing to do, uh, with great risk of, uh, uh, of people getting killed if the process goes wrong. So, to have destroyed the, uh, supplies that Iraq claimed would have, there would have been evidence of it and we’ve found no such evidence. Second possibility is he shipped it out of the country. We just don’t know whether he did or not. Third possibility is that he buried it in the desert somewhere. Now, hard as that is to believe, you ought to go on, uh, the Internet and find the pictures that American troops took of big fighter planes wrapped in burlap buried in the desert sands being uncovered by American bulldozers. It’s like scenes out of Planet of the Apes with wings and tail fins of Migs peering out of the desert sand. Anybody who’s crazy enough to bury Mig fighters in the desert is probably crazy enough to bury chemical weapons. [applause] But we haven’t, we haven’t found that. So, so that, please, don’t go away, I’m not done yet. [laughter] That leaves the possibility that Saddam was lying about his chemical weapons capabilities in nineteen ninety-one when he made the declarations to the United Nations. That, that may be the most likely outcome. That shows how profoundly, uh, deceptive and threatening this regime was. But, but let’s be clear, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was a plus for the United States and the world, it has, it has removed one of the most dangerous regimes, uh, in the Middle East, it has given the Israeli [sic] people the chance for self government, which they hadn’t had in their entire history, uh, and I think that it will lead, uh, to, to greater peace and security for the United States. [applause, cheers]

Let’s just take, let’s just take one or two more here. Anybody else over here? Go ahead….

“…So, everybody believed, everybody believed that the weapons still existed…”

Not exactly.

Curveball admissions vindicate suspicions of CIA’s former Europe chief

Tyler Drumheller says he warned agency director George Tenet over intelligence supplied by Iraqi defector in 2003

Helen Pidd and Martin Chulov

Tuesday 15 February 2011 11.08 EST

The former head of the CIA in Europe, when told of the admissions by the agent codenamed Curveball to the Guardian, said the news made him feel better about himself.

Tyler Drumheller, who says he warned the head of the US intelligence agency before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Curveball might be a liar, said the confession would be a final wake-up call for the hawks who continued to believe that there had been WMD but that the CIA had been “too stupid” to find them.

“The interesting part for me is that he has recanted what he said, which is fascinating in the sense that I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now,” he said…

Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That worked out quite well, didn’t it?

Ambassador John Bolton addressed Missouri Boys State on Tuesday, June 15th. After his speech he took questions from the audience for almost an hour. This is the final part of the transcript of that question and answer session.

Previously:

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: photos

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: remarks

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 2

Question: …Now, I notice you’ve been putting down the current administration quite a bit. [crosstalk] I recall…

Ambassador Bolton: Not really, I haven’t even gotten started yet.

Question: Oh, okay, well,[applause, cheers]…

Now, now going back to two thousand three when we went into the Iraq war, if I recall, you and the Bush administration supported the Iraq war quite substantially. Now, what is your justification for going into the war since they had no nuclear weapons and then themselves had no threat to the United States as a whole? [applause, cheers]…

…Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I view, I view the regime of Saddam Hussein as a threat to international peace and security. And I felt that, uh, after the first gulf war, uh, there was unfinished business in leaving him in power. Uh, now don’t get me wrong, when President Bush forty-one, uh, stopped the, uh, military action and, uh, when he did and essentially took the steps that allowed Saddam to remain in power, at the time I thought that was the right course of action. Uh, and it was only with the passage of time that I realized that, uh, that had been a mistake. Uh, so I view the decision, uh, in two thousand three to overthrow Saddam, eh, effectively as a continuation of the first Persian Gulf War. Uh, and this is not unusual in history, in Europe they had the Thirty-Years War, uh, things go on for a long period of time. But essentially, removing Saddam Hussein was important to remove a threat, uh, that he posed, he and his regime posed in the region and around the world.

Now, the question of whether the regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, uh, I think is one that has been badly misunderstood. There is simply no question that had Saddam accomplished his objectives of eliminating the, uh, U.N. sanctions, uh, and getting U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq, which would have happened as soon as the sanctions regime was lifted entirely, uh, he would have gone back to the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. During the entire period of time after, uh, the nineteen ninety nineteen ninety-one, uh, war he kept, on his payroll, uh, thousands of nuclear scientists and technicians. He called them his nuclear mujahedeen. And there’s no doubt that once the inspectors were gone he would have gone back to his efforts to, uh, achieve nuclear weapons.

Uh, now some people have said that the, uh, failure to find, uh, nuclear weapons or chemical weapons, uh, in Iraq was, was either because the administration distorted what his capabilities were, or that it was an intelligence failure and that, uh, what we know today proves that we shouldn’t have gone to war against Iraq. Well, I can tell you it was not an exaggeration, uh, because you can’t do that in Washington and not read about it in the paper the next day. Nor was it an intelligence failure. The fear that we had about Iraq’s, particularly its chemical weapons, came not from intelligence but came from Iraq’s own declarations in nineteen ninety-one as a condition of the ceasefire after the first Persian Gulf War. Iraq claimed that it had enormous quantities of chemical weapons and under, uh, uh, Resolution Six Eighty-Seven, the so called Security Council Ceasefire Resolution, Iraq was required, uh, to, uh, destroy the weapons that it declared, uh, or to prove to the U.N. weapons inspectors that it had destroyed the weapons. So when the weapons inspectors went in and they began to destroy, uh, various aspects of, of Saddam’s nuclear program and his ballistic missile program, uh, the U.N. weapons inspectors said to the Iraqi’s, show us the chemical weapons that you declared so that we can begin destroying them. Uh, and the Iraqi’s said in response, well, that’s okay we’ve already destroyed them all. And the U.N. weapons inspectors said, okay fine, show us the places where you destroyed the chemical weapons, show us the records how the destruction took place, introduce us to the scientists and technicians who carried out the destruction so that we can interview them and verify that in fact you have destroyed these weapons that you declared. That you declared. And the Iraqi’s said, we’re not gonna show you the locations, we’re not gonna show you the documents, we’re not gonna introduce you to the people who accomplished it. Now, I will tell you there was not anybody involved in dealing with Iraq who didn’t believe that, uh, the Iraqis were flat out lying about having destroyed all those weapons. Uh, they, they had declared that they had the weapons and they produced no proof, uh, to support their assertions that they had destroyed the weapons. So, everybody believed, everybody believed that the weapons still existed. Uh, and in fact, that’s why when American and other coalition forces went in to Iraq they took with them chemical weapons protective gear which is incredibly bulky, cumbersome, and in the middle of, uh, the, uh, Iraqi summer, extremely hot. No responsible American general would burden his troops with that chemical weapons protective gear unless they thought that there was a real risk that Saddam would use chemical weapons. Uh, and in fact, many people around the world argued against the American attack precisely on the grounds that it would provoke Saddam to use the chemical weapons that he had declared.

Uh, now, in fact, uh no chemical weapons were used during the second Persian Gulf War and we have not located, uh, anything but little bits and traces of the chemical weapons capability. Now that means one of several things. First, that somehow or another Saddam had destroyed the chemical weapons. But there is simply no, uh, uh, no evidence anywhere that that’s happened. It’s not something that you just kind of dump into the Tigris and Euphrates River, uh, unless you want to kill everything in it for hundreds of miles. Uh, the, if you look at the way the United States is destroying its own chemical weapons supplies it’s in very tightly controlled  circumstances. This is an extraordinarily hazardous, uh, thing to do, uh, with great risk of, uh, uh, of people getting killed if the process goes wrong. So, to have destroyed the, uh, supplies that Iraq claimed would have, there would have been evidence of it and we’ve found no such evidence. Second possibility is he shipped it out of the country. We just don’t know whether he did or not. Third possibility is that he buried it in the desert somewhere. Now, hard as that is to believe, you ought to go on, uh, the Internet and find the pictures that American troops took of big fighter planes wrapped in burlap buried in the desert sands being uncovered by American bulldozers. It’s like scenes out of Planet of the Apes with wings and tail fins of Migs peering out of the desert sand. Anybody who’s crazy enough to bury Mig fighters in the desert is probably crazy enough to bury chemical weapons. [applause] But we haven’t, we haven’t found that. So, so that, please, don’t go away, I’m not done yet. [laughter] That leaves the possibility that Saddam was lying about his chemical weapons capabilities in nineteen ninety-one when he made t
he declarations to the United Nations. That, that may be the most likely outcome. That shows how profoundly, uh, deceptive and threatening this regime was. But, but let’s be clear, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was a plus for the United States and the world, it has, it has removed one of the most dangerous regimes, uh, in the Middle East, it has given the Israeli [sic] people the chance for self government, which they hadn’t had in their entire history, uh, and I think that it will lead, uh, to, to greater peace and security for the United States. [applause, cheers]

Let’s just take, let’s just take one or two more here. Anybody else over here? Go ahead.

Question: …I am curious about your assessment of the geopolitical and international advantages and disadvantages of the American government’s often uncritical support for the nation of Israel, a nation which has often been condemned by the U.N. Security Council and a great part of the world community, specifically, with regards to the recent flotilla raid and the perpetuation of the Palestinian blockade.

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I don’t think our support for Israel has ever been, uh, uncritical. I think that, uh, uh, nonetheless that, that Israel is a very important ally of the United States. I think that it helps, uh, the United States strategically, uh, in the Middle East, uh, and I think that as a, uh, as a, as an indication of, uh, uh, American commitments to, uh, to important values to us that, uh, that Israel remains the only functioning democracy, uh, in the Middle East. Now, what it, what it’s dealing with in the Gaza Strip is a terrorist camp. Uh, if the United States had a terrorist camp, uh, on its border we would do exactly the same thing. Uh, the idea that somehow, uh, you can allow, uh, free commerce in to Gaza, uh, without increasing the threat to Israel, I think is disproven simply by looking at what, uh, Hezbollah is able to do in Lebanon where it is supplied by Syria and Iran with long range rockets and the potential for at least chemical and biological weapons to threaten Israel. If, uh, if the Gaza Strip were open, uh, Hamas would get the same capability in very short order. Uh, and let’s not forget, it’s not just an Israeli blockade of Gaza, it’s an Israeli Egyptian blockade of Gaza, uh, except every once in a while when the Egyptians open the border as they are now, uh, slightly, uh, for propaganda purposes. Now why does Egypt blockade the Gaza Strip? And the reason is that Hamas, uh, is a, in effect, a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, uh, which is a terrorist organization that threatens the government of Egypt. So the idea that somehow this is all, uh, Israel’s fault, uh, is disproven, uh, by Egypt’s position. Uh, a few moments ago I talked about what I call the three state solution, part of which involved giving the Gaza Strip back to Egypt. Uh, one of the difficulties with the three state solution is Egypt doesn’t want the Gaza Strip because it’s filled with terrorists, uh, terrorists who threaten not only Israel, but threaten the government of Egypt. So, uh, this is a, a graphic demonstration of how the Palestinian people have been exploited, not by Israel, but by extremists, uh, in their own ranks and from other Arab countries that have determined to make them the tip of the spear, uh, against Israel without regard to the true well being of the Palestinian people. And I think if that were a real major concern of ours we’d see a very different approach to the whole problem. [applause]

[inaudible] take the last one over [inaudible].

Question: …Do you believe the United States will commence military operations, uh, Pakistan and North Korea in the near future?

Ambassador Bolton:  well, I don’t see any, any prospect of, uh, of doing that in North Korea. I think that’s a, that, that is one of the consequences, uh, of allowing a state to get nuclear  weapons because, uh, it does make it much harder, uh, to deal with North Korea. I think the ultimate solution in North Korea is the reunification of the Korean peninsula. That’s been our policy since, uh, the original partition at the end of World War Two. I think that’s the only, uh, way to deal with the regime in North Korea. Uh, I think it’d be a huge benefit to the people of North Korea and stability in the region as a whole. I think that’s why we need to do more to convince China that they need to get on the right side of history on this question. Just as the two Germanys have reunited, one day the two Koreas will reunite. Far better to do it in an orderly and peaceful way, uh, than, than in the kind of chaos that can follow, um, uh,  developments in the north.

In terms of Pakistan, you know, one of the reasons why it’s important that we prevail against Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is not simply to prevent Afghanistan, uh, from again becoming a platform for international terrorism as it was before nine eleven, but to prevent instability in Pakistan from growing to the point where that government could fall. And a small group of radicals, Pakistani Taliban or others, could seize control of the Pakistani government and with it, that government’s, uh, arsenal of nuclear weapons. Then you would have, in effect, Iran on steroids. You’d have terrorists in control of what have publicly been identified as between sixty and two hundred Pakistani nuclear weapons. It would pose an enormous threat to peace on the Indian subcontinent, but it would also pose an enormous threat that a Taliban led government in Pakistan would supply those nuclear weapons to terrorists around the world. So, that’s, that’s why we need to work harder on the government of Pakistan, uh, to bear down, uh, along the border with Afghanistan, It’s why we have to defeat the Taliban, uh, in Afghanistan, and why we need to persist and why time lines about, uh, American and NATO withdrawal before we accomplish our strategic objectives, uh, is inherently a bad idea. [applause]

Thank you very much.

Ambassador John Bolton addressed Missouri Boys State on Tuesday, June 15th. After his speech he took questions from the audience for almost an hour. This is the second part of that question and answer session.

Previously:

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: photos

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: remarks

Ambassador John Bolton at Missouri Boys State: Q and A, part 1

….Question: …In recent years we’ve seen how or recent weeks we’ve seen how oil dependence can hurt us environmentally. And in your speech you talked about how the Middle East acquiring nuclear weapons could lead to higher gas prices, but my question is, how, uh, is oil dependence, particularly foreign oil dependence crippling our national defense by placing our dollars in the hands of governments responsible for harboring terrorists?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I think, uh, given that we’ve got global markets in oil, uh, you, you can see that the, uh, the countries that produce the bulk of it and that form the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC, uh, have a, have a disproportionate ef, effect on, uh, on the world’s economy and, and really on the world’s politics simply because they’ve got oil in the ground. My own view is that it would be a lot better for the United States, uh, to drill in, uh, our territorial waters and on our soil and, uh, if we’re gonna pay high gasoline prices let’s at least pay it to ourselves. Now I [applause], I think [cheers], now, we’re, we’re, uh, we’re missing the President’s speech tonight or maybe it comes on shortly about, uh, what, what he now plans to do about this leak in, uh, the Gulf of Mexico. And I don’t, I don’t doubt it’s a severe ecological problem. Uh, but I am worried that we’re gonna get carried away on this. This, this leak, uh, was, uh, was something that obviously nobody foresaw and that, and that, uh, was so severe that it overcame any number of redundant, uh, devices that were designed to prevent exactly, uh, what has happened. There’s no doubt we need to do more on it. But if the conclusion is that we’re simply gonna turn away from oil before we have, uh, substitutes that are, uh, that are in the same cost range we’re gonna cripple the United States economy. Uh, and I think you’ve got to be very clear eyed here that despite the impact of this spill, uh, that it would be a lot better, uh, to find ways to drill that are more ecologically sensitive, uh, and that don’t contain this risk. Why are we drilling in one mile deep ocean territories when we could drill on the North Slope of Alaska, uh, with far fewer environmental risks? [applause] I, I’m not here defend British Petroleum, uh, or what they’ve done as a consequence of this, I’m certainly not here to defend the U.S. government’s response, which I think has been uncoordinated, late, and, uh, obviously ineffective. [applause, cheers]  What I am saying is you cannot let one accident, no matter how serious, uh, uh, cause us in a kind of emotional rush, uh, to give up the capabilities that we have in this country. Because if we put more limits on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico or in offshore regions in other part of the country, uh, we’re simply gonna have other countries open up for more drilling, uh, and we will be buying an even larger percentage of oil and natural gas from overseas. Uh, which I don’t think is in our interest. So, uh, as bad as this spill is and it is bad and it’s probably gonna get worse, uh, we need to take a deep breath, clean it up, plug the hole, and keep drilling for oil in our own, in our own backyard. [applause]…

…Question: …Tonight during your discussion you were talking about Iran’s developing nuclear program. I was wondering what the U.N. or the U.S. would do, um, to intervene when the, um, the, Iran’s, um, threatening Israel, um, Israel’s sovereignty? And do you think it would make a difference if Mousavi got elected in the past Iranian, um, election because most of the power lies within the theocracy and, aya, Ayatollah Khamani?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I, I don’t, I don’t  think the election fundamentally would have changed very much. But I think that the fraud that was, uh, so visible in last year’s election, uh, actually helped demonstrate to a lot of Iranians just how, uh, illegitimate, uh, the Islamic Revolution nineteen seventy-nine has become. I think it’s a very unpopular government in many respects. And I wish the United States, both during the Bush administration and the Obama administration, had done more to supply the opposition with support so that when that fraudulent election had occurred, if we had really given them the resources we might have had an opportunity to see the regime overthrown. Uh, that didn’t happen, we didn’t give them adequate support, either in two thousand nine or in the years preceding that. Uh, and so that opportunity has slipped away and I think it will be quite some time before it comes back. The fact is that, uh, because we have engaged in, uh, now nearly eight years of diplomacy with Iran they have used that time to overcome essentially all of the complex scientific and technological obstacles that stand in the way of a nuclear weapons program. They’re very close to having a weapons capability, it’s really a matter for them when they decide they’re gonna do it. Uh, the diplomacy has failed, the sanctions have failed, uh, so I think today, uh, there are really only, uh, two options facing us with respect to Iran’s nuclear weapons. One is, and this is the most likely option, that indeed they do get nuclear weapons and we’ve got to deal with the consequences of a nuclear Iran. The only thing that will stop that is the second option, which is that some outside power uses preemptive force to strike against the nuclear weapons program, uh, and destroy as much of it as, uh, might be possible, thus setting Iran back, two, three, four, maybe more years. That that is in itself not a complete solution to the problem, but two to four years in, in this business is nearly infinity. I think there’s no chance that the Obama administration will use force. I once thought there was a chance that President Bush would use force. That obviously didn’t happen. I’m not even holding my breath on this administration. Which means that the choice, it’s a very [applause], it’s a very, it’s a very unpleasant choice for Israel, is between seeing Iran get nuclear weapons and taking preemptive action. Uh, military force here is a very unattractive, uh, outcome. It’s very risky, uh, there could be enormous, uh, potential consequences, uh, but in Israel’s case, uh, nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, uh, could bring, uh, a second Holocaust, this time a, a nuclear holocaust. And, uh, I don’t think that’s something that they want to wait and find out about. When Israel has faced, uh, a potential nuclear threat in the past it has not hesitated to act, uh, preemptively. It destroyed, uh, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in nineteen eighty-one, as I mentioned a few moments ago it destroyed the North Korean reactor in Syria, uh, in September two thousand seven. Uh, so given, given the alternative of a nuclear Iran I think the military option is very much on the table for the Israelis. I don’t know what they’re gonna do but I don’t think they have much time. Both because, uh, that Iran is increasingly close to actually having a nuclear weapons capability and because, uh, at, at some point the Russians may yet deliver the, uh, what we call the S three hundred air defense system, a very sophisticated air defense system that Israel couldn’t penetrate, uh, which would effectively eliminate the Israeli  military option
. So, I think we’re very close to a decision by Israel and, uh, and the consequences that will, that will, that will flow from that. [applause]

Question: …You’ve often been referred to as a neo-conservative and you’ve also been known to, uh, not really appreciate that title all that well. I was wondering why?

Ambassador Bolton: Not, not appreciate the what, the title?

Question: The, yeah.

Ambassador Bolton: Well, the, the, uh, the term neo-conservative was first used about thirty years ago and, uh, the best definition of a neo-conservative was, uh, a neo-conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. [laughter] And I’ve never been a liberal, [applause] so. [cheers] I should move to Missouri, uh. [laughter] So I’ve never been mugged by reality. Uh, I think it is a, uh, it’s obviously intended now as a negative term, uh, used largely I think in a kinda almost anti-Semitic way, uh, because so many, uh, neo-conservatives are, uh, Jewish. You know, I’m, I’m a Lutheran. I, I, I catch it from all directions [applause] [inaudible] sort of no alternative. [applause] Uh, but I, I don’t  consider myself a neo-conservative, I’m very much, uh, people, when people ask what kind of label I would put on my foreign policy, they used to ask me this at the U.N. all the time, I say my foreign policy is pro American. [cheers, applause]

Question: …I want to know, briefly, if this is America’s best interest. You spoke heavily on weapons of mass destruction and how America needs to be on her guard, however, legislation has recently been passed which promises to other nations that should they strike the United States with nuclear weapons we will not strike in the same manner. Is this policy, and I quote, in America’s best interest, unquote, if it will further promote those nations with nuclear weapons to impose a terrorist attack on the United States with greater casualties, great, with casualties greater than that in nine eleven.

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I think, I think what you’re referring to is, uh,  is, uh, is a thing called the nuclear posture review, uh, which is a, which is a statutory requirement, uh, that administrations go through and the, uh, the policy that the Obama administration announced was essentially limiting the circumstances in which the United States would use nuclear weapons, uh, and, uh, and specifically, uh, when nuclear weapons might be used in response to countries with chemical and biological weapons. Uh, this, the, what they said in the nuclear posture review, uh, comes from a line of thinking, uh, that says countries that are not able to develop their own nuclear weapons program, uh, develop chemical and biological weapons as an alternative, sometimes called the poor man’s nuclear weapons, because actually, they fear that one day the United States is gonna get up in a bad mood and drop a nuclear weapon on them, so that their response is to develop chemical and biological weapons. Now, uh, and, and, and that their, the concerns of these other countries will be allayed if we say, don’t worry, we’re never gonna drop a nuclear weapon on you to begin with. Now, the logic, uh, behind all this is, uh, is, is extraordinarily bad. Number one, these countries aren’t developing chemical, nuclear, biological weapons because of any fear of us, they’re developing for their own reasons in their particular regions, uh, based on their own defensive strategies, number one. Number two, uh, our saying we’re not gonna attack them is not gonna have the slightest impact on their determination to continue, uh, to try acquire exactly these kinds of weapons. And three, it is better for the United States to leave everybody else guessing when we’re prepared to use nuclear weapons. Uh, obviously, this is the kind of discussion nobody wants to have. We don’t want to use nuclear weapons at any point. But if the United States is threatened it seems to me we ought to reserve to ourselves the ability use whatever weapons we have to protect ourselves, [applause] and [ cheers], lim, lim, limiting what we would do simply endangers our own population. And of course the final irony here is we say to all these countries, well, if, if you use chemical or biological weapons you don’t have to fear our using nuclear weapons, they don’t believe us anyway. So, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve limited ourselves for some purposes, we haven’t achieved the objectives we wanted and I think on balance we end up with a weaker and as I said before, therefore, more vulnerable United States. [applause]

Question: …When you were appointed to your position as Ambassador to the U.N. , uh, by president Bush, it was during a time when Congress was in recess, and, um, that they had not appointed you to the position previously when they were in recess., or when they were not in recess. And my question is, when you went into this job, what kind of mindset did you go in with and how did you feel you were going to effectively be the Ambassador to the United States when Congress, who was in effect, um, a representation of the United States, did not fully support you?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, the, the reason, uh, why there wasn’t a confirmation vote was that the Democrats were filibustering me. Senator Biden, now the Vice President, Senator Obama, now the President, uh, and others, uh, didn’t want to let it come to a vote. But I remember having a conversation with Senator Biden who at that time was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, uh, who acknowledged that if there had been a floor vote I would have been confirmed with a very large majority. They didn’t want that to happen because, uh, heaven forbid, they knew I held views about the United Nations that were skeptical and, uh, and I think what they really wanted was not an American Ambassador to the United Nations but American who would be in New York representing the U.N. , uh, back to Washington. That was the exact opposite of the view I held of the job. So, uh, because they, they had enough, uh, votes to, uh, prevent, uh, cloture from being invoked in the Senate, uh, President Bush decided to give me a recess appointment. So, by the way, when you look at the past year and a half and debates about Republican efforts to obstruct President Obama’s program, uh, and the importance of a filibuster proof majority, this is a classic case of, uh, uh, of who’s ox is being gored, you know, when you have the capability to filibuster then it’s a good thing, when you don’t have the capability then it’s a bad thing. So, it’s a , it’s a matter of, uh, of one’s perspective. But the fact is a recess appointment is provided for in the Constitution, uh, it’s exactly the same as being confirmed, uh, and, uh, in terms of the, uh, attitude at the United Nations, uh, it didn’t, there wasn’t any difference really, they just wanted an American ambassador they knew, uh, had the confidence of the President and they obviously knew that I had that. [applause]…

The transcript of the final portion of the question and answer session will follow in a subsequent post.