The Foreign Service Journal, September 2006

diplomats hoped that the more noxious elements could be extracted in the course of negotiations. And then Bolton arrived. Though it’s impossible to know what would have hap- pened had Pres. Bush appointed a more anodyne figure, there’s no question that Bolton altered the reform debate drastically, and in a very Boltonesque direction. On his very first day in New York, Aug. 3, 2005, he delivered to General Assembly President Ping the stunning news that the entire existing 35-page document would have to be scrapped. What was more, the small group of diplomats who had been collecting views and writing drafts would have to step aside, so that all 191 ambassadors could draw up a document among themselves. When a panicked U.N. official told the American ambassador that he was courting disaster — the deadline was now five weeks away — Bolton calmly answered that he would be satis- fied with the sort of brief summary of common points typically issued after a G-8 conference. A number of Western diplomats, having begun to worry that they were making important concessions on the issues the developing world cared about without bringing the G-77 around on the core peace and security issues that the U.S. was pushing, were relieved to see Bolton interrupt what had come to feel like an unstop- pable process. At the same time, virtually all participants felt that conducting a debate among 191 deeply self- interested parties was a recipe for gridlock. And Washington itself seemed not to want stalemate: Earlier in the summer, administration officials had told their counterparts in the U.N. secretariat that while they had some important reservations about the emerging docu- ment, they strongly supported Annan’s uncompromising language on terrorism; his proposal to replace the tooth- less Human Rights Commission with a much tougher body; his package of management reforms, and a new Peacebuilding Commission. But Bolton gave a distinctly different impression: improving the U.N.’s capabilities mattered less than blocking language Washington deemed unacceptable. Indeed, the only advocates for F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 25