Bolton On Bolton

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In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, John Bolton writes again and this time, ”The Tragic End of Bush’s North Korea Policy”, as if the world is about to end.  Bolton cries out as maybe Thomas Paine might have trying to awake the citizens to a colossal mistake and hoping to rally the troops to a response.  Bolton appears unaware that the Bush Administration has long ago lost its way, and with North Korea, quite by accident, may have found its way… Or at least a way that the US can afford.

Bolton speaks so strongly of a country (North Korea) that consistently does not keep its word in international agreements and suggest that the Bush White House must be in a daze if it thinks North Korea will keep it this time.  Never once does Bolton consider the obvious… so what if they do not keep to this agreement?  What could we do anyways?

Or consider that North Korea boarders China and is also very close to the Soviet Union.  Both of these nations have little to gain with any of their neighbors proliferating nuclear weapons.  One or the other is also key to the support of a country that can not support themselves (in other words, North Korea depends upon the good will of China and Russia).  With both Russia and China on the ascendancy and enjoying a return to the “good life”, they have little tolorance for a wild card country.  With any type of international diplomacy and cooperation, the US could gain these allies in offsetting the fear of North Korea with nuclear weapons.

John Bolton has written before about North Korea and has chastised the Bush Administration on its handling of these negotiations.  I simply wonder if there is any connection between Dick Cheney’s preferred style of negotiating and the fact that both Bolton and Cheney were key members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and sing from the same choir book.  For reasons still unexplained (other than there were no other options since our military is already over committed to Iraq), the State Department won this policy battle.  It tells you a lot that Bolton writes so vitriolic about the President that made his UN appointment while Congress was adjourned.  The neocons take no prisoners.