rssBolton Suggests Nuclear Treaty Threatens American Sovereignty
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 3:33 pm
- 31 Comments
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton (Ron Lewis/San Mateo County Times/ZUMA Press)
In a potential preview of conservative arguments for rejecting the Obama administration’s new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia in the Senate, John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush, said the treaty reflected “stunning naivete” and placed it in the context of threats to American sovereignty during a wide-ranging speech to the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday.
[Security1] Bolton, an influential conservative foreign policy official for decades, accused the Obama administration of harboring “a very different view of American sovereignty than a long line of presidents, certainly since Franklin Roosevelt.” Relying on portions of quotes by senior officials and an undefined category of people he characterized as the “international left” and the “academic left,” Bolton said the administration attaches a “near theological significance” to the power of international institutions whose actions threaten the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution.
Tying ratification of the treaty, which cuts American and Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles by 30 percent, to the broader question of the survival of American sovereignty raises the stakes for a key Obama administration priority. In his announcement of the treaty on Friday, President Obama linked it to his vision of a world ultimately free of nuclear weapons, a priority conservatives have derided. Ratification, already an uncertain prospect in a fiercely partisan Senate, will require the votes of at least eight Republican senators, a task made more difficult by the influential Bolton’s portrayal of the treaty as commensurate with a broader assault by Obama on constitutional values.
Advances in arms control would have “a cumulative impact on our sovereignty,” Bolton argued. While he declined to address the merits of the treaty — whose text has not yet been released — Bolton said it reflected Obama’s “almost religious view in the obligations and implications of treaties.” He scoffed at the president’s statement that the U.S.-Russian reduction in their countries’ nuclear stockpiles, which represent over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, would strengthen global arms control efforts, and suggested that it would spur rogue-state nuclear proliferation.
“I think the people in places like Teheran and Pyongyang say, ‘Fantastic — the United States is coming down, let’s ramp up our production efforts to get to the [nuclear] capability even more quickly,’” Bolton said. “The rhetoric of the arms control advocates often is very divorced from important and legitimate American security concerns.”
Beyond the so-called New START treaty itself, Bolton tied Obama’s foreign policy to what he called a “globalist” effort at replacing ultimate fidelity to the Constitution with fealty to international accords and institutions, a longtime conservative bogeyman, and contrasted it with his own “Americanist” perspective.
“I think if you ask most international law scholars, they’d say, ‘Of course international law trumps the Constitution,’” Bolton said, yoking Obama to that position and suggesting that the administration will never abandon it. “This is a decisive question that we ought to be asking politicians: In the priority, in the hierarchy of legal systems, where does the Constitution fit?”
At least one administration official, State Department legal counsel Harold Koh, came under attack last year for allegedly privileging international law above the Constitution, although Koh last week defended the administration’s legal right to launch drone strikes on al-Qaeda targets far from the battlefields of Afghanistan.
Bolton’s framing comes amid the growing influence of Tea Party activists who frequently question Obama’s devotion to the Constitution, and who are seething over the administration’s recent victory in passing health care reform. It also comes as Republicans in the Senate consider whether they ought to sign the New START treaty or to deal the administration’s agenda an embarrassing international setback.
Senate Republicans have yet to coalesce around a position on New START, especially as Congress enjoys a two-week recess. But the early signs from Senate GOP leaders have not been positive. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) wrote a letter to Obama the day the treaty was announced, warning that even preambular language remotely linking European missile defense to the treaty is unacceptable, despite public declarations from senior Obama officials flatly stating that the treaty will not hinder missile defense. The early strategy from multiple administration officials to pass the treaty is to remind Republicans, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did Friday, that nuclear weapons treaties with the Russians historically sail through the Senate with over 90 votes.
Jamie Fly, the executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative, a conservative foreign policy messaging and advocacy organization, said that while skepticism of the treaty’s verification mechanisms and relationship to missile defense is pronounced, he was unsure “anyone on the right is really ready to say [the treaty] shouldn’t be ratified.” Fly said his organization would await the actual text of New START before taking a position, though he added that FPI was “not huge fans of the Russia Reset,” the Obama administration’s effort to revitalize bilateral relations with Russia. “Everyone I’ve talked to on Capitol Hill and around town is in a wait-and-see mode,” he said.
Bolton, a fixture on Fox News, widened the aperture for criticism of New START, urging conservatives to press politicians on sovereignty issues. “We have to insist on getting clear answers from candidates for Congress, from incumbent members of Congress, from the presidential candidates as we get into the presidential season in the not-too-distant future,” Bolton said, “to make it clear that we view sovereignty and the preservation of American sovereignty as a high priority.”
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31 Comments
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Pingback posted March 30, 2010 @ 7:36 pm
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Comment posted March 30, 2010 @ 8:39 pm
Luckily for Bolton's fellow travelers, Obama's “fidelity to the Constitution” has a huge blindspot for torturers, war criminals, those who conspire[d] to wage aggressive war, Fourth Amendment/FISA violations…
And, Constitutional scholar Bolton should really read this thing he keeps going on about:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Comment posted March 30, 2010 @ 9:18 pm
To me, the statement regarding what our politicians think is important.
“I think if you ask most international law scholars, they’d say, ‘Of course international law trumps the Constitution,’” Bolton said, yoking Obama to that position and suggesting that the administration will never abandon it. “This is a decisive question that we ought to be asking politicians: In the priority, in the hierarchy of legal systems, where does the Constitution fit?”
During the Heath Care Reform debate, our Dem. Rep. dropped his progressive cloak (and lots of his progressive supporters). I am going to question him about his policies on foreign plicy and specifically his support of Nuclear Disarmament treaties.
Comment posted March 30, 2010 @ 9:19 pm
Bolton is a discredited crack-pot who has had his 15 minutes. Move along, Pops.
Pingback posted March 30, 2010 @ 11:07 pm
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Comment posted March 31, 2010 @ 12:40 am
This is not a statement regarding what our politicians think.
This is Bolton stating what Bolton thinks.
Comment posted March 31, 2010 @ 12:41 am
The most important word here is “former.” He doesn't work here anymore. Neither does Cheney, Bill Clinton, Dubya, etc. Who cares what he thinks or says? It's pointless.
Move on. Next!
Comment posted March 31, 2010 @ 4:01 am
John Bolton is to diplomacy what dogs are to vacuum cleaners. They don't understand them, what they do or how they work but they damn sure like to bark at them.
Pingback posted April 1, 2010 @ 6:58 am
[...] Bolton Suggests Nuclear Treaty Threatens American Sovereignty [...]
Pingback posted April 1, 2010 @ 7:26 am
[...] to the UN said, among other things, that the Obama administration “attaches a “near theological significance” to the power of international institutions whose actions threaten the supremacy of the U.S. [...]
Pingback posted April 1, 2010 @ 2:56 pm
[...] Bolton Will Be the Last American Standing Even if He Has to Kill All of You. Don’t hold anything back, John. Tell us how you really feel. Why don’t we just nuke the shit out of everyone now? [...]
Comment posted April 1, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
No, Mister “I Am The Walrus,” in point of fact YOU are the threat to America.
If you're against this treaty, that's proof it's the right thing to do.
Comment posted April 1, 2010 @ 3:57 pm
Sure, America's sovereignty is threatened. We have, by far, the largest, most advanced military establishment in the world. We are a member of the UN Security Council. I don't see anyone in blue helmets, much less any other color or nationality coming into our country to seize power. I think he and George's and Dick's policy of unilateral action is what threatens our national security. I think if he and Dick want to be able to spy on citizens and maintain a huge military industrial complex to try and push everyone else around, they should go stage a coup in North Korea, where they're used to running their gov't that way.
Pingback posted April 2, 2010 @ 2:26 am
[...] Bolton Suggests Nuclear Treaty Threatens American Sovereignty … [...]
Comment posted April 3, 2010 @ 4:53 pm
How Bolton was ever considered a diplomat beats me. Anybody with half a brain knows this treaty is just a (good) deal between the Russians and us to stop spending huge amounts of money on junk we'll never use.
I can't wait for this twit to peddle his crap further to see him lambasted by the likes of George Schultz, James Baker and Henry Kissinger.
Comment posted April 3, 2010 @ 7:06 pm
Bolton had/has no worries about the sovereignty of Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other nation the USSA currently occupies or drones from afar.
Comment posted April 4, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
Bolton's selective outrage about US sovereignty is laughable. Has anyone ever heard Bolton decry the WTO? The real threat to our ability to self govern comes not from the UN but from undemocratic entities like the WTO. The usurpation of national sovereignty is part of its charter. At least the UN has some vestige of democratic ideals.
Pingback posted April 4, 2010 @ 6:02 pm
[...] of all, last week, John Bolton had some ridiculous things to say about New START, saying that it “threatens America’s sovereignty” and a number of other things. I [...]
Pingback posted April 4, 2010 @ 6:16 pm
[...] of all, last week, John Bolton had some ridiculous things to say about New START, saying that it "threatens America's sovereignty" and a number of other things. I don't think it's worth [...]
Pingback posted April 4, 2010 @ 6:23 pm
[...] of all, last week, John Bolton had some ridiculous things to say about New START, saying that it “threatens America’s sovereignty” and a number of other things. I [...]
Pingback posted April 4, 2010 @ 6:43 pm
[...] of all, last week, John Bolton had some ridiculous things to say about New START, saying that it "threatens America's sovereignty" and a number of other things. I don't think it's worth [...]
Pingback posted April 9, 2010 @ 3:05 am
[...] has not surprisingly already starting barking disapproval on the odd grounds of sovereignty (See here) but one hopes that the party of no (whose support will be needed for ratification) understands the [...]
Pingback posted April 9, 2010 @ 1:33 pm
[...] Bolton Suggests Nuclear Treaty Threatens American Sovereignty … [...]
Comment posted April 11, 2010 @ 6:42 am
The Political Strategists and also the Analysts opined that Bolton is more worried about threat to Israel's nuclear facilities being in dire danger the cover up in the name of US.
US is in NO way unsafe because of this treaty while Israel 's PM has already exhibited his concern and is almost taken sick seriously to avoid attending the nuclear submit The President has called to be held in US.
Bolton's dual role had long been exposed and need not shade crocodile tears for the welfare of US. Rather shade tears for those who became from moles to monsters threatening the world and one is Israel.
Comment posted April 12, 2010 @ 3:26 am
I don't think we need to make any new moves on are nuclear programs to any country in these trying times. Mr. Obama is very wrong in doing so. Putin runs Russia not this puppet Putin has on a string. If Mr. Obama can't see that Putin is in charge and can't be trusted he better wake up and smell the nukes. no new deals with anyone!
Comment posted April 12, 2010 @ 3:44 am
If Mr. Obama wants to do something right he should get us out of the united nations right now! the united nations is one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made. The united nations is a joke and we get no where belonging to this group. If a rouge state such as Iran, north Korea and so on do something wrong whats the u.n due sanctions that don't and won't ever work on any of these countries.And China and Russia when can anyone remember the last time they actually stood side by side with the united states when we needed them never it's always more sanctions that never work. MR. OBAMA GET US OUT OF THE UNITED NATIONS A.S.A.P or one day we will be sorry we didn't.
Pingback posted June 14, 2010 @ 2:14 am
[...] of all, last week, John Bolton had some ridiculous things to say about New START, saying that it “threatens America’s sovereignty” and a number of other things. I [...]
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