The Bolton Nomination

WHEN SHE announced his nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice argued that John R. Bolton would be effective because, like former ambassadors Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, he was one of "the strongest voices" in defense of American interests. There is something to that: The United States sometimes needs to stand up to rogue political appointees or gangs of autocrats at the United Nations, and the reforms the institution badly needs are unlikely to go forward without some unceremonious pushing from the U.S. ambassador.

But the United Nations is more than a debating club or a bureaucratic agency. At least since the end of the Cold War, it also has been a potential instrument of global security, one the United States has used effectively at times. At those moments Washington is best represented by a skilled diplomat, one more effective at working with allies and cutting the deals needed to pass resolutions than in battling political adversaries. It is in this respect that the nomination of Mr. Bolton, who is scheduled to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, raises questions.

He is, to be sure, an experienced public servant who helped to conduct the largely successful diplomacy of the first Bush presidency at the United Nations. His defenders describe him as a pragmatist willing to employ the Security Council and other multilateral instruments when they serve U.S. interests. Yet much of Mr. Bolton's record during the past four years, when he was an undersecretary of state, suggests otherwise.

Mr. Bolton has been an outspoken opponent of the International Criminal Court and other international covenants he regards as improper infringements on U.S. sovereignty, especially arms control treaties. We share some of his views, especially about the ICC, but his fervor in pursuing his principles has more than once placed him at odds with pragmatic policymaking. For example, Mr. Bolton's determination to induce countries around the world to sign bilateral agreements exempting U.S. citizens from the international court strained relations with key allies in Latin America and Central Europe at a time when some were materially supporting the United States in Iraq. Under his supervision a key program to dispose of surplus Russian plutonium foundered because of a technical issue about legal liability. Officials inside the administration accuse him of seeking to undermine multiparty negotiations with North Korea about its nuclear program and of obstructing agreement between the Bush administration and European governments on a common approach to Iran. Ms. Rice reached such an accord with Britain, France and Germany within weeks of Mr. Bolton's departure from the State Department.

For much of its first term the Bush administration was hamstrung on Iran and North Korea by infighting in which Mr. Bolton appears to have been a key protagonist. Would Mr. Bolton effectively execute administration policies with which he disagreed? The administration recently won support for a new Security Council resolution on Darfur only by accepting European demands that war criminals from that Sudanese province be prosecuted by the international court. Would that deal have been struck with Mr. Bolton as ambassador?

Senators have the obligation to weigh such questions and to ask how Mr. Bolton's record squares with the president's stated intention to work cooperatively with the United Nations in his second term. Yet, ultimately they must bear in mind that the best arbiter of an ambassador's effectiveness is the president he is charged with representing. Mr. Bush has chosen Mr. Bolton perhaps to satisfy conservatives in his party but also no doubt for the reason cited by Ms. Rice. Mr. Bolton certainly possesses the intellectual standing. So far, there is no compelling case for denying Mr. Bush his choice.