Bolton, Sudan and the U.N.

opinionjournal.com (WSJ) ^ | April 7, 2005 | Masthead Editorial

[neverdem]

Turtle Bay needs "an ambassador to the U.S."

John Bolton's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations can't come soon enough. At the very least, his well-known candor would shed welcome light on the reality that this is an institution where the French and others come together to score political points against the U.S.

The latest example is the Security Council's resolution late last week to refer Sudanese war-crime suspects to the International Criminal Court. The ICC is anathema to the Bush Administration, which is understandably not enthralled with the prospect of American citizens coming under the jurisdiction of a world court brought to you by the same institution that sponsored the Oil for Food program. In opting not to veto the resolution, but rather to abstain, the U.S. swallowed its objections to the ICC for a greater good: the chance to hold someone to account for the mass murder in Darfur and to perhaps prevent more people from dying there.

The greatest irony here is that for more than a year the U.S. had been virtually alone in trying to get the Security Council to take tougher action on Darfur. France and China, which have extensive oil interests in Sudan, weren't interested, nor was Russia, which didn't want to jeopardize its arms trade. A U.S. proposal to set up (and pay for) an African-run war-crimes court met with tepid interest in African capitals after Paris made it clear that the move would come at the price of European aid and trade. The ICC referral was thought up by France, which jumped at the chance to shift the focus away from its own Darfur abdication and embarrass the U.S. At the last minute, however, Britain replaced France as the resolution's sponsor when France couldn't swallow a provision exempting...