John Bolton Actively Sabotaging Condoleezza Rice

December 14, 2005
John Bolton Actively Sabotaging Condoleezza Rice: Finally Shows Real Stripes

...it seems that the real John Bolton has boldly stepped beyond the veneer. And true to form, just as he woke up each morning for the first four years of the Bush administration asking what he could do to make Colin Powell's life miserable and, at the same time, doing Vice President Cheney's bidding, John Bolton has now target Condoleezza Rice's efforts to get America back on a more balanced foreign policy track with the rest of the world.

(Clemons then goes on to discuss and quote from "The Arsonist," an article by Mark Leon Goldberg at the American Prospect):

...In his first moves at the U.N., Bolton made the "eye-popping" proposal to rid the Millennium Summit document of any of the 14 references to Millennium Development Goals. Goldberg documents the uproar that ensued, and no less than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had to put this diplomatic fiasco he created back in order –- compelling Bolton at the end of the day to step back and relent.

But the big news that Mark Goldberg breaks is that the American Prospect has confirmed that it was John Bolton himself who scuttled Secretary of State Rice's efforts to offer Syria a Libya-like opportunity to get itself out of the international dog house. Goldberg writes:

. . .the tension between Rice and Bolton has grown dramatically in several areas, most notably with regard to Syria: The Prospect has learned that Bolton was the source of an October leak to the British press that submarined sensitive negotiations Rice was overseeing with that country.

The Arsonist
From our January issue: In his first six months at the UN, John Bolton has offended allies, blocked crucial negotiations, undermined the Secretary of State -- and harmed U.S. interests. We expected bad; we didn’t expect this bad.