Think Progress

Is John Bolton Upset The North Koreans Once Called Him Bloodsucking ‘Human Scum’?

Ever since news broke that President Clinton was traveling to North Korea to finalize the release of two imprisoned American journalists, super-hawk John Bolton has been on the attack. While he first charged Clinton with “negotiating with terrorists,” he piled on even after the journalists’ release, saying Clinton was “rewarding bad behavior.”

While only a handful of conservatives have criticized Clinton, Bolton has been leading the charge — in major op-ed pages, television, and radio. After criticizing Clinton for “encouraging rogue states” on NPR yesterday, the host asked Bolton what he would have done instead. “[W]orked harder with China,” was all he could muster. And last night on Fox News, Bolton continued the attack, saying that Clinton had endangered the lives of Americans who travel abroad:

BOLTON: Obviously, we’re happy that they’re released, and obviously, the president has a responsibility to try and protect Americans. But he needs to do it in a way that doesn’t endanger other Americans in the future by making it look profitable for terrorist groups or rogue states to grant other Americans and get ransom. … So this is the question looking forward. What Americans now are not important enough for Bill Clinton to come and secure their release?

Watch it:

But what explains Bolton’s harsh backlash against Clinton over the past few days? Back in 2003, when he was serving as U.S. Undersecretary of State in the Bush administration, the North Koreans called Bolton “human scum” and refused to negotiate with him because of his attacks on the North Korean regime:

North Korea said Saturday that it won’t deal with U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton because he described Kim Jong Il as a “tyrannical dictator” and said “life is a hellish nightmare” for many North Koreans. Bolton had made the remarks during a visit to South Korea last week.

“Such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to the North’s official KCNA news agency. “We have decided not to consider him as an official of the U.S. administration any longer nor to deal with him.”

Maybe this is more about Bolton holding a grudge than it is about criticizing President Clinton for securing the release of two Americans being detained in North Korea.

Right Wing Attacks Clinton’s Successful Trip To Free American Journalists In North Korea

Yesterday, super-hawk John Bolton was upset that President Clinton, along with a group that included Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta, went over to North Korea to negotiate the release of two imprisoned American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee. “It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists,” Bolton said. Even after news of their release, Bolton still called the move a mistake. “[T]his is a classic case of rewarding bad behavior,” he complained.

Many right-wing commentators later piled on. “John Bolton is right,” declared the Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes. “This is a lifeline to a regime that is a terrorist regime that has proliferated nuclear technology,” he said. Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino even blamed Vice President Al Gore for the journalists’ imprisonment because he is a co-founder of the company (Current TV) that employs them. “Al Gore is responsible if he made the order, but ultimately, he’s responsible, and I think we need to hear a little bit more about that,” she said last night on Fox News. Some other lowlights:

– Fox News’ Dick Morris called Clinton’s trip “awful” and “ridiculous” and suggested that Ling and Lee should “live with the consequences of their decision to go” to North Korea.

– Charles Krauthammer complained that North Korea “got a lot” out of the deal and that “it does help the North Koreans in their legitimacy.”

But some conservatives did see the utility of Clinton’s trip. “I think it’s wonderful, obviously, that he secured their release,” Laura Ingraham conceded. Shortly after landing in Los Angeles, Ling expressed her “deepest gratitude” for the rescue:

LING: Thirty hours ago Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea. We feared that at any moment we could be sent to a hard labor camp and then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting. We were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton. We were shocked but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end. And now, we stand here, home and free. Euna and I would just like to express our deepest gratitude to President Clinton and his wonderful, amazing, not to mention, super-cool team.

Watch it:

But what many conservatives don’t understand is that, as nonproliferation expert and Ploughshares Fund president Joe Cirincione noted yesterday, Clinton was “the right man at the right moment.” And the BBC’s John Sudworth noted that now was the time to get the deal done:

And not least, there’s always the fear that North Korea could, by holding on to these two journalists, continue to use them as leverage. So I think in Washington’s wider — and perhaps colder — political interests, it makes good sense to try to clear this up now.

“I am very happy that after this long ordeal, Laura Ling and Euna Lee are now home and reunited with their loved ones,” President Clinton said in a statement. “When their families, Vice President Gore and the White House asked that I undertake this humanitarian mission, I agreed. I share a deep sense of relief with Laura and Euna and their families that they are safely home.”

Neocons Claim Iranian Elections Don’t Matter

Yesterday, the American Prospect’s Dana Goldstein noted that the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), despite warning of the dangers of an Iran led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are now suggesting that his possible ouster in today’s elections in Iran will not have any impact on how the Iranian government approaches relations with the West. Goldstein characterized AIPAC’s message this way: “If you are concerned about the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, the argument goes, it doesn’t matter whether Ahmadinejad wins or loses.”

As the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss and HuffPost’s Rachel Weiner have noted, AIPAC’s read on the Iranian elections is nearly identical to that of the broader neo-conservative community:

Daniel Pipes: “The president tends to have power in the areas — in the soft areas — having to do with culture and religion and education. And it is the Rahbare, the Supreme Guide of Iran, Khomeini at first and now Khamenei who has control of the military, the law enforcement, the judiciary system, the intelligence agencies. So its not clear that the president matters that much.” [Heritage Foundation Panel, 6/03/09]

Michael Rubin: “[S]hould someone more soft-spoken and less defiant [than Ahmadinejad] — someone like former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi — win, it would be easier for Obama to believe that Iran really was figuratively unclenching a fist when, in fact, it had it had its other hand hidden under its cloak, grasping a dagger.” [National Review, 06/11/09]

Elliot Abrams: “In fact, a victory by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi, is more likely to change Western policy toward Iran than to change Iran’s own conduct.” [New York Times, 06/12/09]

In apparent confirmation that such sentiments have now become neoconservative dogma, John Bolton echoed them on Fox News this morning. Bolton — who has long demonized Ahmadinejad as a significant threat to U.S. national security — argued to Fox’s Bill Hemmer that an Ahmadinejad defeat would not change Iran’s foreign policy because such issues are handled by the Iran’s religious leaders:

HEMMER: It doesn’t matter who wins then, based on what you’re telling us.

BOLTON: In terms of foreign policy. People like to joke this dispute between moderates and hard liners is that you have Ahmadinejad who tells people that he’s proceeding with the nuclear program and plans to wipe Israel off the map, or whether you have a moderate who proceeds with the nuclear program but is smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

Watch it:

In fact, it would be significant for the Iranian people to reject the radical politics and hard-line policies of Ahmadinejad. As Duss explains, the clerical leadership does not appear to be as interested in pursuing nuclear weapons as Ahmadinejad appears to be. Goldstein adds, “The thing to remember is that despite buzz to the contrary, there are key foreign policy differences between Ahmadinejad, who does not support international talks regarding the Iranian nuclear program, and Mousavi, who does.”

Laura Rozen agrees, writing that “the voting out of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would undoubtedly be seen in Washington and the West as a welcome sign that the Iranian public supports greater liberalization and a less hostile attitude toward the West.” Indeed, even if Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, Mousavi, loses, the campaign demonstrates that “there’s clearly a lot of popular disconnect with Ahmadinejad’s rule, and a lot of it centers around his bizarrely self-defeating approach to foreign policy,” Stephen Walt concludes.

Right Wing Hysterical Over Obama’s ‘Not At War With Islam’ Remarks: ‘We Have Nothing To Apologize For’

President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world has been a welcome development after eight years of President Bush’s “us vs. them” approach. “Let me say this as clearly as I can,” he told the Turkish parliament yesterday. “The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam.” He told Turkish students today, “You will find a partner and a supporter and a friend in the United States of America.” Middle Eastern leaders are embracing Obama’s outreach already.

But apparently, the conservative establishment finds such outreach objectionable. On Fox News yesterday, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, and Sean Hannity all derided Obama’s comments to the Turkish parliament. They argued that in fact, the Iraq war served as evidence of America’s concern for Muslims. CNN’s Lou Dobbs also decried Obama’s praise for the “great civilization of Iran”:

BOLTON:There are an enormous amount of things we’ve done to benefit Muslims in countries all over the world. We have nothing to apologize for.

KRISTOL: But could Barack Obama say something that would be mildly unpopular to an audience which he was speaking? No. Could he say that the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq are just and that we have fought for Muslims, incidentally under President Clinton we fought for Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo?

HANNITY: It seemed to me…that this was an attempt to apologize for toppling Saddam Hussein and the war on terror.

DOBBS: In his efforts to charm our allies, President Obama noted that Islam helped shape the world for the better, including the United States. He even declared Iran to be a great civilization.

Charles Krauthammer said Obama’s parliament speech was “not original and not terribly important.” Kristol responded that Krauthammer was being “too nice.” Watch a compilation:

In his first trip abroad, Obama also extended a hand towards Europe, saying that America had “shown arrogance” and had “been dismissive, even derisive” towards Europeans in the past. Again, the right wing saw this as evidence of Obama’s anti-Americanism.

The outreach is desperately needed. Over “70 percent of Egyptians, Pakistanis, Indonesians and Moroccans believe the United States is trying to weaken and divide the Islamic world,” an April 2007 WorldPublicOpinion poll said. It seems that for the far right, however, the best outreach is always through bullets and bombs.

Bolton: Gaza Crisis Means We Should Attack Iran Now

Yesterday, on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, Iran war hawk John Bolton said that Israel’s recent bombing campaign in Gaza is all the more reason for the United States to bomb Iran now. “So while our focus obviously is on Gaza right now, this could turn out to be a much larger conflict,” he said, adding that “we’re looking at potentially a multi-front war here.”

“You would strike Iran right now?” asked host Alan Colmes. “I would have done it before this,” Bolton responded. Colmes asked whether tensions and war across Middle East would escalate if the U.S. or Israel were to bomb Iran. Bolton said that the many Arab countries would secretly be cheering if Iran were attacked:

COLMES: So if we do that, they strike back, are we then in danger of creating a broader war?

BOLTON: I think in many Arab states in the region, although they wouldn’t say it publicly, they’d be doing the equivalent of popping champagne corks because the Arab states don’t want Iran with nuclear weapons any more than Israel does. What Iran could do is what’s already happening in the Gaza Strip or what might happen if they unleashed Hezbollah, terrorist attacks on Israel.

Watch it:

It’s hard to believe that the Arab world would be pulling out the party hats if Iran were attacked. Thanks to the policies of President Bush, the U.S is immensely unpopular across the Middle East. Iran, on the other hand, enjoys unprecedented support in Iraq, which is supposed to be America’s greatest ally in the region.

The LA Times reported last year that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “has transcended national and religious divides to become a folk hero across the Middle East.” Ahmadinejaded, “the leader of a non-Arab Shiite nation, has ingratiated himself with the Middle East’s predominantly Sunni Arab population.”

Without regard for the wider war and increased regional instability that an attack on Iran would likely cause, Bolton believes the solution to a Middle East already in flames is to throw more wood on the fire.