You know, I never wanted Bolton -- I don't trust folks with such aggressive facial hair -- but I figured he'd be on a short leash, a neutered sop to the neocons. And so watching him bark, growl, and tear through the UN Reform process, killing a document we should have wanted, derailing progress on nonproliferation that we benefit from...It doesn't brighten my mornings.
But even so, I still believe him symptom rather than cause. Bolton's a boil on the ass of our foreign policy, a hacking cough and chunky phlegm afflicting our Diplomatic Corps. No fun, to be sure, but not the underlying problem, either. For that, you should look to the accelerating worthlessness of America's signature on a treaty. Examples range from the big, like our split from the ICC and Kyoto Accords, all the way down to the small, like our gleefully illegal rejection of NAFTA's rulings on softwood. This is from The Economist:
