Has the UN barn door already been un-Boltoned?

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Nothing vouchsafed John Bolton’s UN mission more than attacks from the Demogogues. Those East River 149 representatives know Bolton’s being pushed into the teeth of controversy by the President adds clout. They know Bolton represents the will of the world’s most powerful executive, whether your flavor or not. Furthermore, the fictional institution is replete with testimony tart-tongue advocates of American interest are the most successful – Moynihan, Kirkpatrick – even while they waged guerrilla with Foggy Bottom.

But alas! we see a rerun of an old B-film. Secretary of State Rice’s Washington Post interview stinks of diplomatic cant. She had Bush’s ear, we were told, and would institute his foreign policy at State where Presidents get ambushed. It’s what State’s vaunted French colleagues call deformation professionelle: if you are a surgeon, you want to cut first, nurture later, if you are a businessman, you want to trade first, pay later, if you are a diplomat, you want to negotiate endlessly, face crises later. And since Americans worship success, a successful negotiation is compromise, the negotiation’s purpose often lost in the shuffle.

It’s not that one has to believe Bolton has been defanged. [Woe be onto us if he has lost his enthusiasm for brusque pursuit of national interest.] No, the problem more likely is what is happening to American foreign policy while he was prepping for the Senate’s trial by ordeal.

Bolton’s recent difficult brief was how to keep weapons of mass destruction from pariah states – or God forbid – terrorists. He has risked his reputation defying other government entities [heaven forbid it could be State itself where he hung out as a “political”!]. And to Bolton’s everlasting glory, robust American determination [until now] to prohibit nuclear arms to Iran and North Korea has held firm. Yet with one fell swoop, Washington has pulled the rug in the kind of absent-mindededness so often its product.

The Bush Administration inherited from Clinton the concept of reversing U.S.-India policy. With the Soviet Union’s implosion, India awoke from a deep sleep [including the present Prime Minister who bought the Soviet economic development strategy, then became an overnight convert to market economics with the kind of religiosity apostasy sometimes brings]. India’s 35-year Moscow alliance was importantly responsible for the Third World’s Cold War acceptance of anti-anti-Communism. [For example, India supported the Soviets at the UN in Communism’s 1956 “reconquest” of Hungary].

In Washington conferences where jabber sometimes replaces thought, a U.S.-Indian alliance [after all trade was mushrooming, and outsourcing was picking up the pieces of the dot.com bust] has become a bumper sticker. New Delhi, with an appetite for new sources of capital and technology, has been quick to pick up the invitation. Bitter enemies, even the now ruling Congress Party with its longtime Nehru family bonding to the Soviet hierarchy [no matter its bloodbaths]. have come around, tis said. [Only the pro-Chinese Communist Party with a greater Maoist hangover than the Chinese is barking at the government’s heels.] And, slyly, it’s whispered India is after all the other Asian giant competing with China.

When Manmohan Singh turned up last month, State wanted to memorialize the Indian prime minister’s annual visit. Hard to do that on bread and butter issues. Despite proffered U.S. fighters, New Delhi is committed to continued billions for Soviet weaponry. It’s taken years to unravel the largest foreign [U.S.] investment in Indian power [remark the sector!] Restrictions on foreign ownership still inhibit investment, even Wal-Mart! “Dual use” technology transfers face hurdles.

So “solving” America’s complaint with India over its clandestine development of nuclear weapons outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty became issue de jour. There were mitigating circumstances: the Bush Administration [and everyone else seriously interested in getting the U.S. off the foreign fossil fuel teat] wants to build nuclear power stations again, the least harmful to the human condition of all energy creation. But America has been out of the business for almost three decades. One way to regenerate it [a British firm is now selling Westinghouse to the highest bidder] would be subsidized foreign sales – India [and even China with a huge program on the books].

Et voila! A program of Indian nuclear power sales becomes specialite de jour. True, unlike Pakistan, as Singh pointed out, New Delhi has no history of foreign proliferation. But there is a long dispute saga over U.S. fuel for Indian reactors. India’s civilian power program is no more segregated than …woops, Iran’s. India never even signed the NPPT with its inspection procedures – much less bolting it as North Korea did. Nor, grumbled critics of the Prime Minister, is it going to let those Americans police agreements even if Washington must [never underestimate the chutzpah of Indian diplomats, pace V.K. Krishna Menon] not only accept India as a member of the nuclear club, but also must convince the Old Boys –Russia, the U.K., France, and …China].

Bolton has, among his priority UN chores, advocacy against wimpish Europeans Security Council sanctions against Iran if – as seems likely this week, who knows next week? – Tehran continues its pursuit of WMD.

Is it easier to clean out Augean stables if the door was left open?