President Bush has nominated UN critic John Bolton to be the next US ambassador to the UN. Bolton’s the sort who won’t be afriad to go up against the UN bureaucracy and demand real change an accountability. At the same time, the confirmation fight on this position is going to be brutal.
Bolton has been the head of the Bush Administration’s counterproliferation efforts, and is a firm believer in controlling the flow of weapons across international borders. Given the UN’s weak record on ending arms proliferation from places such as North Korea and Pakistan, someone’s got to prod the UN to take action.
I’ve the feeling that Bolton is going to have a very tough time getting nominated, but he’s exactly the kind of person we need in the UN — someone who’s willing to do more than bow and scrape in deference to such a corrupt and wasteful organization. Bolton will demand real reform and real results from the UN — although one suspects that such a task would be nothing less than Sisyphean.
