The United Nations is a collaborative body. Each member nation, of course, keeps in mind its own interests, but in the spirit of unity and accomplishment, the goal is to minimize national primacy and seek collaborative solutions to collective problems. That is the beauty and that is the difficulty of the role of the United Nations.
John Bolton has been nominated as the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Because of Bolton’s views and history, this nomination contradicts the spirit of a productive nomination to this position. John Bolton has stated repeatedly his rigid belief in U.S. primacy in the world. Bolton puts American self-interest first, second and third on his list of three criteria for collaboration. Bolton does not collaborate compromises in the interest of world unity.
John Bolton wants to lead the United Nations according to the national interests of the United States. In areas where the national interests of the United States are opposed by world opinion or even by world peace or justice, Bolton will impede collaboration and will derail collective solutions. John Bolton wants to lead the U.N. towards a U.S.-dominated posture, not to a posture of world unity based on the views and principals of the entire body or even the majority of the body.
For this reason, the nomination of John Bolton is not only a mistake; it is an insult to the world. The world is not demanding U.S. leadership, which is often accomplished by threat, coercion, or bribery. The world wants to erase the domination of American self-interest, which has so often injured the peoples of the world.
It would be hard to imagine a worse nominee for Ambassador to the United Nations than John Bolton. This is a nomination that must have been intended to weaken, to disrupt, to damage the workings of the U.N. Perhaps that was the plan of George W. Bush in nominating Bolton.
