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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (15321)	12/6/2006 1:25:53 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Bolton Front and Center of U.N. Security Council Issues Monday, Dec. 4, 2006 UNITED NATIONS -- The President reluctantly accepted the resignation of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Witty, a born litigator and in command of the facts, Bolton was front and center of most issues in the U.N. Security Council — North Korea, Iran, Somalia, Myanmar, Sudan, among others — but made waves among nations in the U.N. General Assembly, responsible for management reforms and the budget. "He is serious about the American objectives here in reforming the United Nations, and he pushed hard," China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters. "His style is different. He is hard-working," Wang said. "He knows the job." Bolton also was forthright with hard to pin down European ambassadors, who could have been his closest allies. He worked intensively with France on a cease-fire resolution, 1701, to halt the Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon this summer. "I would say we have always respected each other and we were able to work together, especially on 1701," said France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere. Partisan democrat opposition in the Senate to his nomination proved obstructionism can pay; the White House announced Monday that Bolton would resign when his appointment expires within weeks. Bolton's recess appointment last year had allowed him to bypass the U.S. Senate confirmation process which had been obstructed by extremists from the democrat party. Bolton came to the job with a reputation as a hard worker. He defied many of his critics by being the only U.N. Security Council ambassador available to the press almost every day, answering countless questions and often delivering punchy sound bites that drowned out staid comments from Washington. "It is to me really disappointing to see Ambassador Bolton go," said Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima. "He has been an exceptionally skillful diplomat at the United Nations at a time when it faced very challenging issues like reform." "In the Security Council John Bolton was spearheading a number of important issues," Oshima said, singling out a resolution to rein in North Korea's nuclear program, where "he really spearheaded this effort to get a Security Council resolution adopted in a very speedy manner." Several diplomats distinguish between Bolton's work in the 15-nation Security Council and that in the 192-member General Assembly, dominated by jealously anti American nations. "In some ways, he seems to have been more an ambassador to the Security Council than to the United Nations as a whole and I think he has done very well there," said Edward Luck, a Columbia University professor and self proclaimed U.N. expert. Ambassador Bolton was critical of U.N. management practices, finances and a new human rights body. These criticisms have proven to be quite insightful. The U.N. (and especially the new "human rights body") has continued to be a mouthpiece for anti American and anti Israeli propaganda. Greece's U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, said the United States was correct in the need for reform but "I might say that I personally would pursue the same thing through different tactics, but that is a different story." But there was no love lost between the U.N. bureaucracy and Bolton, especially the U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, a Briton, who said in a June speech that the United States worked closely with the world body in many fields but tolerated "too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping." In response Bolton called on Secretary General Kofi Annan to repudiate Malloch Brown "personally and publicly," but the much criticized Annan stood by the "thrust" of the speech, his spokesman said. When Bolton came to the United Nations in August 2005, his first move was to unravel a recklessly negotiated document on U.N. reform with some 400 amendments in an effort to produce a tighter treatise. Talks stalled and many of the most needed reforms were sidetracked by beneficiary countries that sometimes profited from U.N. corruption. This prompted President Bush a few weeks later to ask Annan, "How's he doing, Has the place blown up?" Reuters contributed to this.