John Bolton is as hawkish, hard-headed, mendacious, and infuriating as ever. He's as much an embarrassment to the United States as George W. Bush.
But don't take my word for it. See for yourself.
Last night I was in the London audience of "Question Time," the BBC's weekly political discussion program. The show commemorated the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war with a high-powered panel of movers and shakers:
- former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto;
- UK Defense Secretary Des Browne MP;
- UK Conservative shadow defence secretary Liam Fox MP;
- former leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy MP;
- former MP and president of the UK Stop the War coalition Tony Benn;
- former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, by satellite hookup from Washington.
And Bolton took no prisoners.
Background: As a military mother -- my 20-year-old son is three weeks away from finishing his first tour in Iraq with the U.S. Marines -- I was invited to join the audience of "Question Time" via Military Families Speak Out (in the U.S.) and Military Families Against the War (here in the U.K.).
It was a fascinating if exasperating experience. Everything happens very quickly, and the points you want to make can get swallowed up by timing and prompting, etc. During the entire show I was the only one to ask about the politics of oil, which Tony Benn briefly took up -- but clearly it's bad manners, as a British historian friend recently told me, to discuss the real reason behind the war.
But back to Bolton.
I won't recount the entire show -- you can watch it online for yourself -- but I can't help highlighting here for Kos posterity the gambit Bolton used at the very start of the program.
Question: Four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, is the world now a safer place?
Bolton: I think the answer is an unquestionable yes. We've eliminated a horrendous dictator who was a threat to the peace and security of the Middle East and beyond, one of the world's preeminent threats and a person who used WMD against Iran and against his own people. I think the elimination of Saddam Hussein alone justified the action the coalition took. There are other threats we face, no question about it, the world remains a dangerous place, but there's one less dictator that threatens us now.
The same talking points, over and over again. WMD that the UN inspectors were only months away from concluding didn't exist ("It would not take years, nor weeks, but months," Hans Blix told the UN Security Council two weeks before the invasion), a dictator who had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or 9/11. Exaggeration that led to motives that led to a disastrous war.
Suffice to say that Bolton's comments throughout the show were generally met with derision by the audience and even a few gasps at his blatant contempt for anyone -- panelists included -- who didn't agree with his views.
But go ahead and watch the show for yourself.
Oh, and about the oil. The fact that an administration of oilmen attacked -- unprovoked -- the No. 2 oil-rich country in the world is hard to dismiss and relegate to mere conspiracy theory. Ditto the fact that in 1999 Dick Cheney, while at the helm of Halliburton, said, "By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies."
Ergo, as far as this military mom is concerned, until the Iraq hydrocarbon law is hammered out so the US and UK oil companies can go in and take their share, my son and his fellow troops will be in and out of Iraq for years to come. Which is as depressing as it gets.
Meantime, let's pretend you were in the audience last night. What do YOU think?