Reviewing John Bolton's new book, Surrender is not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad, Mark Goldberg writes, "to Bolton, cutting deals to satisfy mutual interests is a form of surrender. And surrender, as Bolton helpfully reminds us in the title, is not an option." This is extreme even for the Bush administration, and it makes for some bizarre bureaucratic battles, and eventual humiliations, later on:
In a September 22, 2004 dinner with G-8 countries, Bolton claims that Powell unilaterally discarded existing administration policy by affirming American support for a European plan to offer a Tehran a package of incentives as part of a nuclear deal. But Bolton, as he reminds us frequently throughout the book, "doesn't do carrots," and was incensed that Powell would offer to engage Tehran. Worse, according to Bolton, Powell's motives on Iran were less than pure -- angry with Bush over Iraq, Powell sought to cement his own legacy at the president's expense. "Powell had violated our long-standing Iran policy, colluded with the [Europeans] against it, and come out nearly endorsing Kerry's Iran position only weeks before the election," writes Bolton.
Upon learning of Powell's apparent deal-making, Bolton frenetically worked the bureaucracy in a successful bid to outflank his boss. "Along with others, I foiled Powell's legacy project." Bolton boasts. "I knew, and he knew I knew it." Bolton's push for a harder line Iran policy would be short lived. Following the 2004 election, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice steered Iran policy back to Powell's approach. On May 30, 2006, Rice invited Bolton to dinner to let him know, face-to-face, that the United States was signing on to a European plan to offer Iran a package of economic incentives if Iran would agree to suspend uranium enrichment.
A depressed Bolton remembers what he ate for an appetizer -- carrot soup.
Ah, irony. In any case, it occurs to me that I've never read a sustained argument for the neocon position that diplomacy and negotiations are bad things, ad these procedures should be reimagined as the carrots with which we compel good behavior -- i.e, Iran gets a meeting if they cease enrichment -- rather than the process through which we negotiate adherence to our references. Anyone know of such a piece, or is this attitude too crazy to even be argued?
