Bolton has cycled through most of the think tanks of Right wingnuttia and has been the protégé of many of the luminaries of that world, including Jesse Helms, Edwin Meese, Jim Baker III, and Dick Cheney.

In 1986-1987, as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs, he stonewalled investigations into drug smuggling and arms running by the Contras. In a February 3, 1994 speech, he opined that the UN could lose its top 10 stories without any problem (see item 35). He was a signer of the January 26, 1998 Project for the New American Century letter to Bill Clinton which stated the neocon agenda which served as a blueprint for the Bush Administration:

“The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy”

From 1999-2001, he was a senior vice president at the bastion of neoconservatism the American Enterprise Institute. He participated in the Republican push to stop the 2000 Florida recount under Jim Baker’s direction.

In 2001, he was made Undersecretary for Arms Control over Colin Powell’s objection and at Dick Cheney’s behest.

In 2001, Bolton, a member of the NRA, announced at the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons that the US would oppose any regulation in this trade that has caused so much death in the Third World because it would “abrogate the constitutional right to bear arms.”

After the anthrax scare which followed 9/11, he spiked UN efforts for a treaty on bioweapons.

In May 2002, Bolton claimed without any evidence that Cuba not only had a biowarfare capacity but was selling it.

On May 6, 2002, Bolton asked for and received the privilege of communicating to UN Secretary Kofi Annan that the US was withdrawing from the International Criminal Court. (Clinton had given preliminary approval on December 31, 2000 at the very end of his term to the Treaty of Rome which created the court.)

In 2002 and 2003, Bolton accused Libya of aggressively pursuing WMD. Libya had begun talks with Britain and the US in March 2003 as the Iraq war began to eliminate its WMD programs (which, in the event and contrary to Bolton’s charges, were not very advanced). His activities nearly derailed the talks and it was only after Britain requested his removal from them that they were successfully concluded in December 2003.

In June 2003, he enunciated a “rollback” strategy on WMD aimed not just at preventing their spread but eliminating them from “rogue” states which already possessed them, such as Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Libya, etc.

On July 31, 2003, he again jeopardized arms control negotiations when he gave an unauthorized speech in Seoul. In it, he lambasted Kim Jung Il’s human rights record barely a month before the first round of six party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program was to begin on August 27, 2003. While such criticisms were justified, they were seen as an attempt to sabotage the arms talks and it took some fast foot work to limit the damage he created.

Also in July 2003, Bolton had to postpone an appearance before Congress in the face of a revolt by intelligence analysts over his exaggeration of Syrian chemical and biological weapons programs which he characterized as destabilizing the Middle East. In June, he had already testified that Syria had much more of a nuclear program than it in fact had. (To date, Syria’s nuclear program has been fairly minimal in nature.)

And there was his treatment of nuclear materials in Russia (see item 91).

In 2005, Bolton led an unsuccessful push to oust Mohammed ElBaradei the head of the UN’s IAEA (see item 122) because he had been right about Iraqi WMD and skeptical of claims that Iran had a nuclear arms program.

You may be beginning to detect a pattern here. Bolton’s job was arms control but his manner and demands were so extreme and his views so wrong that he posed an existential threat to any arms control negotiations he got near. He combined great aggressiveness with equally great ineffectiveness.

Nor was it just that he was a loose cannon. He was a loose cannon with an agenda. He withheld information from his superiors, and it became the job of Colin Powell’s deputy Richard Armitage to muzzle Bolton (as much as that was possible) and encourage those who reported to Bolton to communicate directly with him.

Bolton was consistent about one thing. He was vindictive toward anyone who disagreed with him. In an effort to spy on and embarrass his superiors and coworkers, he requested raw NSA transcripts 10 times (4 times in 2003, 3 times in 2004, and 3 times in 2005, in all containing the names of 18 American individuals). (NSA transcripts are required to have the names of Americans redacted. It says something about Bolton’s pull that he was able to get a hold of the raw transcripts containing the unredacted names. On the other hand, it later came out that the release of unredacted transcripts was much more common than previously thought and that the NSA had released up to 10,000 names to various departments of government.) Bolton was less restrained with subordinates. In these cases, he would go directly to their immediate superiors and seek to have them punished or fired. A former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl Ford said succinctly of Bolton that he was “a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.”

Although he was more visible and well known as UN Ambassador, his power was greatly diminished in this role. It was limited further by the time constraints of the recess appointment. This was as it was no doubt meant to be. Being Cheney’s man meant he could not be fired, but he could be promoted out of the way, and this is what happened. John Bolton is a stellar example of the Bush/Cheney flair for choosing the absolutely worst person for a job. He did a great deal of damage but could have done much more if he had not alienated everyone around him.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons [WMD] and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

The argument waxed and waned over the years, often in reaction to developments real or perceived in Iran’s nuclear program but also to other events. In July-August 2006, Iran was blamed for its support of Hezbollah during Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and then in 2007 for its much more tangential backing of Hamas against Fatah in the Palestinian civil war. In this country in 2007, the Iran blame game developed 3 well defined prongs: in the White House, the Congress, and the media.

Bush at an October 17, 2007 news conference on the nuclear aspect:

I believe that the Iranian — if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace. But this — we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

And Cheney before Washington Institute for Near East Peace (WINEP) on October 21, 2007:

The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences. The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Then there was the Explosively Formed Projectile (EFP) story of Iranians supplying Shia militias with especially lethal IEDs which the military and intelligence community pitched to credulous journalists. On February 10, 2007, Michael Gordon came out with the first of several pieces at the New York Times which were notable for their anonymous sourcing and unsubstantiated claims. These articles were heavily criticized in the blogosphere but it didn’t stop Gordon from revisiting the subject on March 27, 2007 and August 8, 2007 and recycling many of the previous charges.

In Gordon’s original piece the accusation was made that the smuggling of EFPs into Iraq was “approved by Supreme Leader Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force.” This claim quickly fell apart but it did not stop Bush without any additional evidence from asserting in a February 14, 2007 Valentine’s Day presser:

I can say with certainty that the Quds Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated I.E.D.’s that have harmed our troops . . . And I’d like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of the government. But my point is, what’s worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and its happening?

Blaming the Iranians for American deaths in Iraq provided a useful excuse for Bush’s failures there and helped gin up the case for a future conflict with Iran.

Bush’s bellicosity toward Iran worried some in Congress. Representative Peter Defazio (D-OR) on January 16, 2007 sponsored a resolution (H. Con. Res. 33) calling for an explicit Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) before any attack on Iran. The Democratic leadership essentially killed it by referring it to committee. Walter Jones (R-NC) had done proposed something similar (H.J. Res 14) on January 12, 2007. His effort met a similar fate. Both came just days after Bush officially announced his plan for the “surge” on January 10, 2007.

On March 12, 2007, Pelosi stripped out similar language requiring Congressional authorization for an attack on Iran from the Iraq supplemental bill (H.R. 2206). The next day she addressed AIPAC’s annual conference. A coincidence I’m sure.

On May 16, 2007, Defazio brought up the issue of an AUMF again in H. Amdt. 187, an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill H.R. 1585. It was defeated 136-288.

On June 20, 2007, H. Con. Res. 21 a resolution sponsored by Steven Rothman (D-NJ) called for the UN to take action against Iran for its nuclear program and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for violating the UN Convention on Genocide for his remarks (which Middle East expert Juan Cole said were mistranslated and misconstrued) calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. It passed 411-2.

On July 11, 2007, the Senate passed a resolution (S. Amdt. 2073) introduced by Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT) 97-0. It repeated most of the charges made in the press against Iran but actually only required reports on Iran’s activities.

Back in the House H.R.1400 the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 sponsored by Tom Lantos (D-CA) passed 397-16 on September 25, 2007. It increased nuclear and financial sanctions and sought to “place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRG] on the list of specially designated global terrorists, and place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of weapons of mass destruction proliferators and their supporters.”

The next day on September 26, 2007, the Senate passed the Kyl-Lieberman (S.Amdt. 3017 as modified) 76-22. Like the Lantos bill, the original text asked that the IRG be put on the list of specially designated global terrorists but contained two more disturbing paragraphs:

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;
 
(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies

The Congressional actions should be seen as a continuum moving from a demand for an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) as was done with Iraq, to a laundry list of charges against Iran, to sanctions, and finally to a call for military action. The final text of Kyl-Lieberman took a step back allowing military action against Iran but only in Iraq:

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to stop inside Iraq the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies.
 
(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States National power inside Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments in support of the policy with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

The resolutions keep coming. On May 22, 2008, Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY) introduced H.Con.Res.362. As of July 2008, it had 220 cosponsors. It calls for sanctions and

declares that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, through all appropriate economic, political, and diplomatic means, is vital to the national security interests of the United States and must be dealt with urgently

And ends with the injunction to “make clear to the Government of Iran that the United States will protect America’s vital national security interests in the Middle East.” On June 2, 2008, Evan Bayh (D-IN) introduced a very similar resolution S.Res.580. It currently has 32 sponsors. It adds one caveat which the House version lacks:

asserts that nothing in this resolution shall be construed to authorize the use of force against Iran

Good luck with that. It is unclear if there will be a conflict with Iran. Cheney and the neocons want it. The media are complicit, and the Democrats complacent. The costs and repercussions, however, would be great and not easily controlled. Such a conflict would be far worse than Iraq, and that is what is so troubling. Bush’s Iran policy is deeply reminiscent of the stumbling, ill-considered lurch that took us into Iraq. We seem to have learned nothing.

On December 3, 2007, the summary of the November 2007 NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) was released (despite DNI Mike McConnell saying he wasn’t going to do this anymore). It stated that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in Fall 2003 (blowing the Cheney backed case for war to pieces and raising questions why it was pushed for as long as it was). It further stated that even if Iran revived its program it was unlikely to have sufficient enriched uranium for a bomb by 2009, that it might have the capability to build a bomb in the 2010-2015 time range but that it probably would be after 2013 and possibly after 2015.

The Administration sat on this NIE for a year due to its content (November 2006). The original push for a change came from notes obtained in the summer of 2006 exchanged among Iranian officials complaining about the shutting down of the nuclear weapons program. In the subsequent months, the case only became stronger with the defection of a Revolutionary Guard General Ali Reza Asghari to Turkey in February 2007 and old communication intercepts the government came across in July 2007.

After months of disagreements with the Bush-Cheney warmongering on Iran, Admiral William Fallon who became CENTCOM commander overseeing operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq on March 16, 2007 announced his resignation and retirement on March 11, 2008 to become effective March 31. Fallon was reported to have told a source at the time of his confirmation in February 2007 that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.” With his departure, the chances of a US (or a US sanctioned Israeli) attack on Iran have greatly increased.

Colin Powell:

May 15, 2001 in congressional testimony: "It [Iraq] has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction — chemical, biological and nuclear — I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful."

February 5, 2003 in his now infamous, reputation killing presentation to the UN Security Council on Iraq’s WMD: "The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction pose to the world."

Condoleeza Rice:

July 29, 2001 on CNN: "We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

September 8, 2002 on CNN: "We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Dick Cheney:

April 15, 1994 at the American Enterprise Institute: "Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq."

May 14, 2007 on Fox News: "Al Qaeda has based its entire strategy on the proposition that they can break the will of the American people, that if they kill enough that eventually the U.S. Government will withdraw. They believe that . . . Al Qaeda has said Iraq is the central front in their war on the United States. You do not want to withdraw and give them a victory in Iraq."

The charitable explanation is that 9/11 addled their brains.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 12, 2008, retired Air Force General Larry Welch chairman of a Defense Science Board task force investigating the incident stated that since the end of the Cold War nuclear weapons security has undergone a precipitous decline. Safeguarding the nation’s nuclear arsenal is seen as a deadend career. Where once flag officers (generals, admirals) oversaw these devastating weapons, responsibility for them has now devolved to mid-level officers and officials. In other words, Minot was an accident waiting to happen.

Along similar lines, it came out in March 2008 that in fall 2006 the Air Force had mistakenly sent four electronic triggers for Minuteman MK-12 warheads to Taiwan instead of the helicopter batteries the Taiwanese had requested. The error was not discovered for a year and a half and then only by the Taiwanese who alerted the Pentagon. On June 5, 2008, citing this incident and the Minot affair, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accepted the resignations of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael Moseley. On June 18, 2008, Admiral Kirkland Donald who investigated these matters on Secretary Gates’ behalf informed Congress that more than 1,000 components for nuclear weapons could not be accounted for.