It hasn’t taken John Bolton long to undermine UN reform efforts. Just three weeks after his recess appointment, Bolton is reversing the work of U.S. negotiators and is seeking to “scrap much of a draft plan for comprehensive UN reform just weeks before it is to be adopted at a world summit.”
In a clear effort to throw a wrench in the gears of UN reform, Bolton wants to “launch line-by-line negotiations on the document, starting from scratch.” Another Bolton idea: “replace the current 38-page draft with a punchier three-page version.”
Line-by-line negotiations would be a disaster. American diplomats were deeply involved in the writing of the draft plan to begin with — reopening the debate on these issues would put the reform effort back at square one. Not to mention the effort to replace the draft with a three page document. How in the world do you reform the UN with a three page document?
The fact is you don’t. It seems that Bolton’s real motive is to turn the September world summit into a fiasco by either making sure that nothing is agreed to, or by making sure that what is agreed to is devoid of any significant reform.
Bolton was sent to the UN not to reform it, but to undermine it, and he’s already hard at work.
– Max Bergmann
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