Bolton is on duty as America's sentry; undersecretary of state John R. Bolton is determined to see that rogue states do not obtain weapons of mass destruction and is committed to a U.S. missile defense

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 22, 2002 | by Paula R. Kaufman

On May 11, 2001, John R. Bolton was sworn as undersecretary of state for arms control and international-security affairs. He is regarded by many as the nation's sentry, guarding the American people from proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), their middlemen and weapons brokers. Bolton not only champions non-proliferation of WMDs, he also is committed to erecting an effective global missile-defense shield.

In a speech in Washington at the Heritage Foundation in May, Bolton wasted no time including rogue states Libya, Syria and Cuba in the triumvirate of President George W. Bush's evil axis of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Bolton issued this warning: States that either are sponsors of terrorism or are intent on acquiring WMDs immediately must halt these activities or expect to become U.S. targets.

Bolton also read his audience a letter he wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan about the U.S. decision to bow out as a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (see "ICC Fails Tests of American Justice," May 27). In that letter, he cited the ICC's intent to subordinate U.S. legal codes and practices to the whims of nations where concepts of law are unknown or disregarded.

Just last month, Bolton served as the point man and chief negotiator of the historic Moscow Treaty in which significant reductions were made in strategically deployed U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads. But he cautions that Russian transference of ballistic-missile technologies, as well as offensive biological and chemical weapons, to terrorist regimes such as Iran, remains of immense concern to the United States.

Insight: Undersecretary Bolton, Christopher DeMuth, head of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has said that you do not believe in diplomacy as an end in itself. Will you comment?

John R. Bolton: I believe in the advancement of American interests, and sometimes that means you take actions that are unpopular. This doesn't suggest you need be unpleasant, but diplomatic harmony is not an end in and of itself. The important issue here is the effective advocacy of American values, principles and interests.

Insight: Why are you opposed to the United States becoming a signatory to the International Criminal Court?

JRB: I wrote about the International Criminal Court [ICC] well before I joined the Bush administration. I opposed it. During the campaign, President Bush also said he opposed the U.S. signing on to the ICC. The real question, however, was how the U.S. was going to respond after a new president was inaugurated. You see, President Clinton had signed the statute on Dec. 31, 2000.

There are complicated international legal arguments involving the effects of such signatures. We decided to remove any doubt about the impact by removing our signature from that [unratified] treaty. We do not recognize its jurisdiction over the United States. We believed it did not contribute to either international peace or security. Ultimately, it probably did not even contribute to the search for justice. There are many other alternatives to the ICC and we are prepared to pursue them.

The U.S. has one of the finest records of military conduct, both in peacetime and during war. We will continue to insist on the highest standards from the U.S. military because it is in our national character. From that point of view, we do not believe the ICC will be of benefit.

Insight: Isn't it precarious to have nations that are as abusive of human rights as Libya, Cuba and Syria sit in judgment of the United States? Does this not risk arbitrary and highly politicized justice?

JRB: Right. We are worried about the risk of a highly politicized ICC. For one thing, the court's prosecutor is effectively without supervision. That is a real problem. The U.S. had extensive experience as it relates to Watergate with the so-called independent-counsel statute. The Congress, in a bipartisan move, repealed the statute because the appointed prosecutor was, by and large, not democratically accountable.

And it is precisely this--having important decisions made by an international independent prosecutor--that concerns us so much. Unsupervised prosecutors, unaccountability, and the likelihood of a highly politicized court are all very risky.

Insight: Many have said there is a fundamental paradigm shift under way in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy as practiced under President George W. Bush. Will you comment?

JRB: I believe the president clearly understands that 10 years after the end of the Cold War the time has come to provide greater coherence to our foreign-policy objectives. The tragedies of Sept. 11 caused us all to rethink international-security arrangements. The president recognizes we are not facing a traditional geographical threat as was posed by the former Soviet Union. The threat today is diffused and asymmetrical, emanating from rogue states and terrorists who are in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Although asymmetrical threats derive from smaller and less powerful opponents, we no longer can maintain the belief that the classic model of deterrence will prevent future attacks. The president is aggressively moving to build a defensive missile system. We cannot wait for an attack.