John Bolton on the three-headed monster of the Middle East

Seth Mandel
May 23, 2008

North Korea's attempts to build a nuclear facility in Syria, Iran's sponsorship of terror and pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the post-Annapolis Israel-Palestinian conflict are the three main issues facing the West in the closing months of the administration of President George W. Bush, according to former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

Bolton spoke May 8 at an event sponsored by the futurist think-tank Hudson Institute's New York Briefing Council at the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan.

Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the audience that all three issues, which are centered in Israel's backyard, present threats that must be taken seriously, even if that means acknowledging diplomatic failures and a necessary change in course.

Reactions to the reactor

Bolton said that Israel's destruction of a North Korean nuclear facility in Syria in September has exposed the true intentions of Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.

"Now, it was clear to me, and in fact it was clear to me even before the raid, that there was a nuclear facility of some kind being constructed in Syria," Bolton said. "And the Israeli raid, to me, was clear confirmation that this was not just a threatening military target, but a facility of such dramatic importance that the government of Israel was prepared to risk a general Middle Eastern war in order to destroy it."

Members of the U.S. Congress were recently briefed on the details of the Israeli raid and the nuclear facility, which turned out to be a clone of the North Korean nuclear facility at Yongbyon, calling into question the administration's perceived success through the Six-Party Talks -- negotiations with the Koreans to dismantle their nuclear facilities that have been taking place for about five years.

The reaction in the House and Senate on both sides of the isle, Bolton said, was, as expected, "outrage that the North Koreans had gotten away with this."

The Korean concessions, he said, were clearly a charade.

"The North Koreans have been engaged in the Six-Party Talks for almost five years, which is almost exactly the length of time that the reactor on the banks of the Euphrates River was under construction," Bolton said. "It's perfectly obvious that the North Koreans were, as an insurance policy, building this reactor with the Syrians, and in my estimation with the Iranians -- possibly with Iranian finance -- so that when they finally got rid of the piece of junk at Yongbyon, and got a huge propaganda value out of that, they'd have another way to get plutonium."

Bolton said the "zeal for the deal," an attitude prevalent in the State Department that often values an agreement for its own sake instead of the value of its contents, is setting a bad precedent with what should be an easy case.

The North Koreans, he said, are experts at negotiating a deal and then renegotiating it as long as they are allowed to play that game. But North Korea is a totalitarian regime with one friend (China) and no valuable resources or assets.

"If you can't deal with a threat like North Korea, it's hard to see how you deal with other threats," Bolton said. "And that's why the subject of Iran as a second example in these waning days of the administration, is such a problem."

Murdering at will

The Iranians, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are pursuing a nuclear weapons program; are increasing assistance to Shiite radicals targeting American troops in Iraq; are aiding the Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan; are sponsoring Hamas terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip; and have, via Hezbollah, brought the democratically elected government of Lebanon to its knees.

"This is not a situation where they are threatening aggression; they are carrying aggression out," Bolton said. "And we have not responded to it effectively."

About a year ago, Bolton reminded the audience, Iran kidnapped British sailors it claimed were in Iranian territorial waters. The British response increased Ahmadinejad's standing in the Middle East significantly overnight.

"So, Ahmadinejad, who gains a huge propaganda victory for capturing these British sailors and marines, gains another propaganda victory by releasing them as an Easter present to Prime Minister [Tony] Blair, and by admonishing Prime Minister Blair that he should pardon these service members for violating Iranian territorial waters," Bolton said. "I don't know what the Farsi word for chutzpah is, but this guy's got it in voluminous amounts."

And he learned a lesson, as well: he can push, and we won't push back. Our forces in Iraq, Bolton pointed out, are being attacked by Iranian proxies -- and probably Iranian soldiers -- and the Iranian ambassador in Iraq is a senior officer of the Quds Force, the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

"He's not a diplomat, he's a military commander," Bolton said. "So you can imagine what this former officer -- probably still is an officer -- of the Quds Force does in their daily staff meetings in the Baghdad embassy. Who are we kidding here?"

Bolton has advocated a targeted attack on Iranian terror training camps; without some show of strength, he said, the U.S. will be projecting weakness on the Iranian issue. And that will have dire consequences for the third issue, the Annapolis-launched peace process.

What process?

The conditions on the ground are simply not conducive to a peace process right now, Bolton said, yet its pursuit continues, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's tenuous grip on the premiership appears weaker each day.

"But I think the government of Israel is like the Rock of Gibraltar compared to the Palestinians, who are split, probably irretrievably, into at least two camps, and where there is simply nobody on the Palestinian side who can make authoritative decisions, or could carry out any decisions they might make," Bolton said. "And yet here's our government investing presidential and secretary of state time and prestige that I don't think is going to lead anywhere."

Failure on any of these fronts reduces American leverage on the others, and yet all three situations are unstable. At the same time, Bolton said, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are in negotiations about power-sharing arrangements after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's tenure is over.

"So here are potentially extraordinarily consequential developments right on the borders of Israel that we're not paying attention to, frankly," Bolton said. "And yet we're grinding along on the Annapolis process with the determination to create a Palestinian state by the end of this administration."

Bolton was asked what should be done about Iran. He said that even if we were told the Iranians were three years away from attaining nuclear capability, we could not act as though we had two years and 11 months to get serious about the situation.

He said the failure of European negotiations with Iran have presented only two options: regime change or military action against the country's nuclear installations. Military action is "deeply unattractive" for a variety of reasons, he said, but it must be on the table. And regime change doesn't happen overnight.

Meanwhile, led by the British foreign ministry, our European allies have been negotiating with Iran for five years -- a gift, he said, for which the Iranians are grateful.

"That has given Iran an asset they couldn't otherwise have purchased for love or money, and that's time," Bolton said. "Time works on the side of the proliferator."