Clemons on Bolton
Steve Clemons at the Washington Note predicted two days ago that the Bolton nomination was dead, given Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee’s opposition. The Washington Post has come around to the same conclusion.
Bolton is a slippery character who has made all kinds of scurrilous and unsupported charges over the years. He once said, “There is no United Nations.” He denied that that US invasion of Iraq, with no United Nations Security Council authorization and no casus belli, violated the UN Charter. Then there is this: the International Atomic Energy Agency has said repeatedly that it cannot find good evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program as opposed to a civilian nuclear energy research program. The IAEA has also said that the situation is not completely transparent. Bolton recently charged that after years of investigation, it still cannot be ruled out that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, implying that therefore it did. But it is much more likely that there is no clandestine program, since IAEA inspections would likely have turned it up by now.
The IAEA has slammed an error-riddled report written by a Bolton associate for the Republicans in Congress that made false allegations about Iran’s program.
Informed Comment called the report “riddled with errors” when it first came out.