Posted on 05/17/2007 2:21:21 PM PDT by SeafoodGumbo
Here’s our John Bolton myth-building moment of the day, as the former UN ambassador appears on BBC Radio with a raving leftist anti-American BBC interviewer. A must-listen, in every myth-building sense of the term. As EU Referendum says, no wonder they hated Bolton at the UN.
BBC: Tony Blair is in Washington, his last meeting today with President Bush as Prime Minister. It's been a close relationship, far too close for many people. How will Gordon Brown handle it? I'll be talking to one of the more controversial figures in Mr. Bush's administration over the years, John Bolton. Mr. Bush appointed Mr. Bolton to be his Ambassador to the United Nations, but the Senate refused to ratify him and he had to resign. I'll be talking to him about America's foreign policy in the final 18 months of the Bush Presidency, and about the Bush-Brown relationship.
Bolton: Whenever leaders change they have to establish a new personal and political relationship. Prime Minister Blair had an excellent relationship with Bill Clinton and many people thought he would not be able to establish something that close with George Bush, and yet he did. I think the real issue, uh, is whether the Brown government will continue a strong stand on the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere.
BBC: He may see the threat that Mr. Blair saw. He may also feel and certainly if he accepts a lot ot the advice he's getting, he may also feel that our approach to it, driven by the United States, has been profoundly mistaken.
Bolton: I think it's been a shared decision on things like Iraq in particular, and if he chooses to reverse Prime Minister Blair's policy, he's obviously free to do that. I think that would be a mistake.
BBC: But then you thought it was a mistake the fall of the British Ambassador, Mr. Greenzog to behave the way he did.
Bolton: Well, I thought that the approach to Security Council resolutions that the U.K. took before the overthrow of Saddam was incorrect. Yes, that's right.
BBC: Because?
Bolton: Because I don't think there was any need to go back to the Security Council. I think we had full authority to the extent of the Security Council matters from Iraq's continued breaches of Resolution 687, the so-called Cease Fire Resolution from 1991, and when the cease fire was broken obviously the original authorization to use force returns.
BBC: But you said in The Telegraph that ?Scaren Greenstock? worked to undermine Mr. Blair's American stance in the United Nations and you suggested that he did so with the support of the Foreign
Office.
Bolton: I haven't seen the interview in print, but I think there have been a number of occasions where the Foreign Office wasn't carrying through on what Prime Minister Blair's policies, just as often happens in the United States, the State Department is not loyal to the President's policy.
BBC: And you believe that that continues to be the case?
Bolton: I think in several respects, yes, I think that this is a real problem in both democratic theory and of institutional compliance with democratic mandates in Washington and in London.
BBC: You don't believe that Foreign Office professionals have a responsibility to advise their political masters?
Bolton: I think they can advise us if they want. I think the real responsibility is to follow orders when they're given clear orders, which they often do not do.
BBC: And you have evidence of that?
Bolton: Repeated experience for over 25 years in American foreign policy whee I've seen it in operation, including being told on a number of occasions by British staffers that their ambassadors were not following instructions from London.
BBC: Do you believe that that is continuing?
Bolton: Oh I don't think there's any question about it.
BBC: And the effect of that is what?
Bolton: Well I think it's a pernicious effect on the U.S.-U.K. relationship and that's one reason why the dealings between the Prime Minister and the President are so important and why I think Prime Minister Blair did have a profound effect on President Bush's thinking in a number of respects.
BBC What should his thinking be on Iran?
Bolton: I think that we now have, after nearly four years of the EU3 effort to negotiate Iran out of its nuclear program, we now have conclusive proof that they're not going to be chatted out of it. They're determined to proceed, they've mastered many of the technical obstacles they had encountered previously, and they're moving towards complete domestic mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle. What that tells me is that only pressure will work, up to and including regime change if need be and, as a last resort, the use of force.
BBC: What sort of force?
Bolton: I think the force you could contemplate would be destroying one or more links in Iran's nuclear fuel facilities to prevent them from accomplishing what they need to do to get highly enriched uranium or plutonium that they could weaponize.
BBC: Haven't we learned anything from Iraq?
Bolton: I think that what we learned from Iraq is that we have overthrown one regime that was a threat to international peace and security, but I dno't think the unfortunate situation we see in Iraq today is an argument against the use of force, if need be, to overthrow an incumbent regime like Saddam's.
BBC: And do you believe that the Middle East is a safer place now than it was before Saddam Hussein was overthrown?
Bolton: I think that the foundations for a more secure place are there. You have to look at the circumstances, for example, after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When we responed, on could say that the Pacific was a more dangerous place, but we were onto making it a far safer place.
BBC: And how many more people must die in Iraq before you begin to have any second thoughts about this?
Bolton: Well, I think that's a question largely for the Iraqis themselves.
BBC: So, we go into a country, we destroy everything that existed in that country....
Bolton (interrupting): Well that's just flatly wrong. That's just flatly wrong.
BBC: Which part is wrong?
Bolton: That we destroyed everything in the country. What we destroyed was the Baath Party dictatorship.
BBC: We destroyed all the institutions is the point I was making.
Bolton: They, they...C'mon now – the fact is that the ministries, The Ministry of Agriculture and others below the political leve,l continuted their work. The instrument that we destoryed, much as in the case of Communist parties around the world or Nazi or Fascist parties, was we destroyed the Baath Party. That's an entirely good thing.
BBC: We demobilized the army, we send home, we send home hundreds of thousands of soldiers with nothing better to do than go and shoot each other.
Bolton: The conduct of affarirs after Saddam leaves a lot to be desired. There's no doubt about that. But that does not go to the antecedant question about whether it was right to overthrow Saddam.
BBC: Really?
Bolton: Of course not.
BBC: You mean to say that the greatest power that the world has ever seen can march into a country and destroy the existing institutions and then say, “Look if it all goes wrong afterwards, don't blame us”?
Bolton: Of course that's, of course that's not what I said. Wqhat I said was we had overthrown Saddam
Hussein which was the right thing to do. I think, in retroscpect, what we should have done is turn more authority over to Iraqis earlier.
BBC: Isn't the political reality that because of Iraq, and because of the massive damage it has done to America's moral authority in the world, what you want to do in Iran, whether or not there's the support for it ultimately, cannot be done. It simply can't be done because America is now, in this sense at least, a busted flush.
Bolton: You're absolutely wrong. I don't think there's any sense of that in the United States which is the place that it really matters, and those people who hold...
BBC: Have you looked at President Bush's latest poll ratings?
Bolton: I'm talking about the country's view of its role in the world as a whole. And the people who express the point of view you just expressed I think were largely anti-American beforehand anyway.
BBC: People like George Soros?
Bolton: Are you kidding me? This is a man of the extreme left. I'm sure you would find a great deal in common with him, as would many others on the Continenet. But that is not anywhere close to the view of the majority of the American people -- whatever President Bush's current poll ratings.
BBC: Do you make the assumption then that because one asks questions, perfectly valid questions about the conduct of American policy, that one is on the extreme left?
Bolton: I can see it from the content of your questions and the perspective from which you're coming, and from the direction that your questions are taken. If you tell me that you're a conservative, I'd be happy to accept it.
BBC: I would tell you that I'm neither conservative nor left-wing nor right-wing nor middle-wing because...
Bolton: You have no views at all? Your brain is empty, you have no views at all (laughing)...
BBC: I have an awful lot of views, Ambassador, a view for every subject under the sun but I don't express them during the course of my interviews – I ask questions.
----hard to get exactly correct transcription here as they go back and forth quickly---
Bolton: Oh they're your questions
BBC: That's what interviewing is about....Well then you'll know....playing devil's advocate...maybe they...Maybe they don't do it like that in the United States.
Bolton: I know, you're a superior Brit, aren't you? Good for you, sir.
BBC: No, no. We do it differently. Whether we do it better is another matter, but we do it differently here in many respects. But there we are (?), let's put that to one side. Let me suggest this to you, and no doubt you'll call me a member of the extreme when I put this to you as well, which is that the great neocon adventure, a phrase that I suspect you'll reject, is over.
Bolton: Well, I'm not a neocon, number one, but number two, I don't think the neocon adventure is over.
BBC: I suggest that to you because what we're seeing at the moment, and this may be no more than a symbol, but we're seeing the demise of Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank.
Bolton: I see you're a gravedigger as well. I'm not at all sure I see that demise happening yet.
BBC: You don't think he's fatally flawed?
Bolton: I don't think he's fatally flawed at all. Whether he holds the job or not, I don't know. I think that remains to be seen.
BBC: Ambassador, many thanks.
Get rid of them, Brits.
just because you have an educated British accent doesn’t mean you are smart. Bolton flames BBC reporter.
...AND Pbs here. It will never happen but it is a happy thought.
I LOVE John Bolton. Absolutely brilliant smackdown of this snotty BBC communist.
Contacting my Ping lists.
If not for crybaby DeWine, Bolton would still be our ambassador!
What a shame!
must read.
Outstanding smackdown...
I went to grad school in Britain (both London colleges) and I have to say how pleasurable it was to express my supply side, tax cutting, wealth creating capitalist views in my papers, and how thoroughly appalled they all were.
When in conversations like these though, I usually jump right ahead to the expletive ‘sh—head.’ It’s a bit puerile, I know, but terribly effective. The typical response is squirming.
More, I’ve found that Bolton’s accusatory ‘superiority’ comments don’t work. They didn’t work for Hannity last night with Hitchens, who ate the pannicky Hannity’s lunch.
Rather, it is best to call them second raters, and ask them what they’ve contributed to freedom loving peoples outside their borders since the regicide of Charles. The silence is invariably deafening, and leads to increased self-loathing.
Go John Bolton!
Bolton should be our next SecState under the Thompson/Hunter Presidency.
(If there ever will be a Republican Presidency again, after Amnesty!)
Oh my gosh. These liberals all sound the same. There is absolutely no reasoning with them.
We need much much more of John Bolton.
I would have loved to see this insufferable insipid Brit get his head handed to him. Bolton’s only crime is he is not a euroweenie.
bolton is a true america
a national hero
and this smarmy brit prick got his face wiped in a pile of dung by bolton’s superior debating skills and argument
can you imagine a bigger fag than this bbc jerk?
president bush, might i suggest you buy yourself a pair when dealing on a public relations/political level
you have done no one a favor by acting the pious wimp and sending the exact wrong message to the world’s hyenas in the media
f I had MY way, Bolton should be our next Vice President!
It was a sad day when they cancelled John Batchelor on WABC. He had Bolton on all the time and I was so impressed with his brains and fortitude.
I haven’t seen an American take on the BBC since Camille Paglia had a meltdown several years ago.
bookmark bump
I guess if you share ideological DNA with Adolph, Valdimir, and Joseph, you probably want to keep your pedigree to yourself.
On the BBC, the accents are no longer educated. You used to hear Oxbridge, almost Shakespearean actor tones on the Beeb. Now you hear even more pretentiousness, but it's twanging out of mouths with ugly, regional, and I might say silly, accents. Their Blairoid socialism must have made them purge the classy voices.
Slice and dice!
I am sure Chelsea Clinton did the same while she was at Oxford.
You are right all of these liberal journalists sound alike,but none of them will admit their evidenced bias.
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