Most potential Republican presidential candidates agree: the economy is going to be the central and defining issue of the 2012 election. This view, however, is not a universal one. There is at least one potential candidate who believes that foreign policy may pose even greater challenges to the next president than the economy. Ambassador John Bolton is concerned about the lack of foreign policy discussion coming from Republican hopefuls, and fears the consequences of the lack may be disastrous. And, as a result, the pugnacious conservative diplomat is considering jumping into the fray. I spoke with Ambassador Bolton two weeks ago on a broad range of foreign policy issues, his impressions of the potential competition, and some thoughts on how a foreign policy candidate like Bolton might address complex domestic issues.
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A.J. Nolte: In a book review of Collin Duke’s ‘Hard Line’ written for National Review you write of the 2012 Republican nomination contest that we need “a more robust vetting on foreign policy issues during the candidate selection process”, and that this is “the only thing that stands between the Republican electorate and potentially disastrous foreign policy consequences.” What should that vetting process look like, and what role do you see yourself playing in it?
Ambassador John Bolton: Well, I think it’s very important to return national security issues to the center of the national debate over policy. Obviously, there are a lot of critical economic issues being debated now, but Obama has, in two years, largely turned off debate on foreign policy. He’s just not that interested in it, he confronts national security questions effectively only when he has to, and that approach has been mirrored, I think, too much on the Republican side. I think the world remains dangerous for the United States; I think there are any number of growing foreign policy risks that we face. You can see it in the events in Egypt in the past three weeks. So, number 1, what we need to do is simply restore the saliency of national security in the national policy universe. Number 2, we need to find out what the views are of the prospective Republican candidates. I’m hoping that most share a very sound approach to foreign policy, but we need to flush that out in specific. And we need to see, really, who is prepared, if they’re elected, to assume responsibility for foreign policy, and even before that, who’s prepared to debate Barack Obama in the campaign in the fall of next year. I haven’t decided what my role is yet—I haven’t decided whether or not to become a candidate—but I have said for quite some time now that I think it is important to get national security issues out in the forefront, and that’s what I’m still thinking about how to do.
AJN: What do you think are some ways that, with candidates who’ve got less foreign policy experience—I know a lot of the 2012 prospective candidates are governors—how do you think we can know beyond sort of the platitude foreign policy statements that they come out with, where they’re coming from on foreign policy? Do you think who they hire as their staff is the key determinant, or are there things in their records as governors before that we can look at to find that information?
JB: Well, I think one way you find out some of the answers to these issues is in debates, and what they feel they need to address in the course of their ongoing campaign. And I think a lot of it depends on citizens. Its the same as in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary and the others that come after that, Nevada, Michigan, South Carolina, Florida, that people in those states really have great access to those candidates because of their relatively early positioning in the whole process. I think the more people who ask the candidates about their foreign policy views, the more candidates will have to respond, and that would be all to the good.
AJN: You mentioned the Egyptian crisis a couple of times, and I wanted to amplify that. Its been grabbing a lot of headlines, and a lot of the potential 2012 candidates are responding to it. If you wouldn’t mind, how would you assess some of their responses, and how would a potential candidate John Bolton respond differently to the Egyptian crisis than some of the other potential candidates out there?
JB: Honestly, just in the interests of time, I talked about Egypt at some length in my CPAC speech…, and I know that it’s up on the web (click here). I think some of the other candidates have begun to address it, I noticed Governor Pawlenty did, and I told him—actually I ran into him at Fox on Friday night, Fox in Washington, and I said I agreed with the point he had made on Egypt. I think that’s an example of what I’m talking about; the more you get the candidates to articulate what their views are, the more clearly we can understand their thinking and voters can make up their minds. When you start from a place where there’s almost no discussion of foreign policy, obviously the only way you can go is up, but I think it’s important to get that process started.
AJN: Now, just very quickly, I want to hit you with a couple of foreign policy-oriented questions, and ask what you think a Republican president should do about these ongoing challenges, and how you would contrast that with the Obama administration. I want to start with Iran.
JB: Well, I think the risk of Iran getting a nuclear weapons capability in the near future is extremely high; I think the administration has completely fumbled an adequate response to Iran; I’m afraid the time for diplomacy and even economic sanctions has passed, and that one has to look at the use of military force against Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program. I don’t think there’s a chance that the Obama administration will use force, so the spotlight—the pressure—really now is on Israel. I think they’ve got clear national interests in making sure that Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons, and while the military option is unattractive, it’s even more unattractive, as John McCain said in the 2008 campaign, to imagine Iran with nuclear weapons.
AJN: I spoke with Rick Santorum, who’s thinking about running, and he says that we need to try to encourage the Iranian democratic movement and work with them using our intelligence capabilities. Do you think that bird has flown, or do you think there’s still a possibility there?
JB: I definitely think that’s something we ought to do, because I think our long-range objective ought to be the overthrow of the regime in Tehran and its replacement with a more representative government. The problem, I think, is that Iran is right now so close to achieving a nuclear weapons capability, that they might well get there before the resistance has a chance to make the weight of its opinion felt. We’re really in a race against time; that’s why the military option is on the table. There really isn’t much time, in my view, notwithstanding some propaganda reports you’ve heard about the Stuxnet virus or the effect of the economic sanctions. The virus may have slowed Iran down, but not dispositively, and that’s why the risk that they are so close to a nuclear weapon means that the military option, in the short-term, is probably the only viable response.
AJN: Speaking of countries with nuclear weapons, Pakistan seems not entirely stable, and of course we’re heavily invested in Afghanistan. How would you handle that policy differently than the Obama administration?
JB: I think the two are very closely linked. You don’t want instability in Afghanistan or the return to power of the Taliban there to empower the radicals in Pakistan. I think the president’s made a grievous mistake in his Afghan policy. Even though he agreed to increase US and other NATO forces, he coupled that with his insistence that a draw-down of those forces begin in the summer of this year we don’t know what the size and the scope of that will be, but I think the risk is that it’ll be substantial. Which means that, if you’re the Taliban, you simply have to wait until the balance of power inside Afghanistan turns in your direction. And I think the threat of extremists taking over in Pakistan, and gaining control of those nuclear weapons, is a real problem. Now, on the other hand, Pakistan doesn’t get any easier to deal with either. You can see the current controversy over this American that they’re handing who says he acted in self-defense to prevent a robbery or kidnapping and killed two Pakistanis. We can’t get him returned as he should be under the principle of diplomatic immunity. Its a very difficult situation, and once again I think one major problem is that the administration just is not devoting enough time and attention to it, and getting serious about the risk of these Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands.
AJN: One think I think they have focused on, perhaps not in a way that you would approve of, is nuclear proliferation, with the START treaty. What are your thoughts on that, and how should a Republican president handle that situation differently.
JB: Well, I think National Review had a poll of people who were being talked about for the nomination, and overwhelmingly they opposed ratification of new START. Some of the governors didn’t respond to that poll. I think that was the right approach; I think it was a badly flawed treaty, and I think it advantages Russia over the United States. We’ve got a worldwide obligation with our nuclear umbrella, so putting us at the same level with the Russians, especially a low level, may look equitable, but it doesn’t satisfy the legitimate needs, not only for our own national defense but for that of our friends and allies, and the stability of the world as a whole. And the way the treaty is constructed, as a political matter, I think there are real inhibitions on our ability to get an effective national missile defense system against limited strikes; I think it limits our ability to use our launch platforms for conventional weapons unnecessarily, and I think its just another sign of the administration’s unfortunate policy of trying to drive to global zero on nuclear weapons. So, its a bad treaty, but its also a harbinger of other things to come.
AJN: We’ve talked a lot about how some of the domestic-policy-oriented candidates have not been able to effectively deal with foreign policy, and they need to do more. Let’s take it the other way; could a primarily foreign-policy-oriented candidate win the Republican nomination in an election dominated by the economy, and if so, how?
JB: I don’t necessarily agree that the next election will be dominated by the economy. Politicians, like generals, have a habit of fighting the last war. I don’t doubt that economic issues are going to be extremely important next year, but next year is a long way away, and as the events in Egypt demonstrate quite compellingly, foreign policy has a way of intruding on internal American policy deliberations. Having said that, I also don’t doubt that, if I were to make a decision to get into it, I’d have to articulate a whole range of views on domestic economic issues, and I’m prepared to do that. I’ve been very lucky in the past four years, and before I went into the administration, for the four years before that, to be at the American Enterprise Institute, where I’m surrounded by some of the best free-market minds in the United States, and indeed the world, so I think I’ll be ready for that if the need should arise.
February 28th, 2011 at 8:53 am
I am the walrus
February 28th, 2011 at 9:22 am
He’d be better than Mutt or Hick and would bring some good perspective to the debates.
Sarah’s Secretary of State?
I could see that.
Our bench is deep and we have some quality individuals ready to populate the next administration. I can’t wait to get these infantile Marxist amateurs out of power.
February 28th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Sarah Palin’s favorability rating slips among Iowa Republicans http://bit.ly/fxl2WM #tcot 12 minutes ago
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In other news, the sky is blue.
February 28th, 2011 at 11:07 am
Notice they didn’t print any of the other dwarfs numbers.
She has a 65% favorability rating.
Romney would spend a millon dollars to get that kind of favorability in Iowa.
Yes, it has “slipped” from 71% from last year…
hmmmm, has anything happened over the past year that may have affected that number?
LOL
really weak…but the sheep follow along, parroting the biased headline. Anything to spin something negaatiove about Governor Palin.
I smell the fear
February 28th, 2011 at 11:12 am
That’s among Republican’s only, dude. 65% IS NOT A GOOD NUMBER.
You must be new to politics.
February 28th, 2011 at 11:21 am
Bolton: It’s not the economy, stupid
By JUANA SUMMERS | 2/28/11 9:56 AM EDT
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50324.html
February 28th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Was it just my imagination or did I hear Mitt spend a fair amount of time criticizing Obama’s foreign policy blunders? I believe Romney understands that foreign policy and the economy are intertwined.
February 28th, 2011 at 11:54 am
Sweet, politicoed!
February 28th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Congrats A.J., very cool.
February 28th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Thanks. Hope this happens a lot more to everyone writing for the site.
On the content of the interview, two things really jumped out at me. One, out of all the people who responded on Egypt, Bolton singled out TPaw. This could simply be because he’d talked to him about Egypt the weekend before the interview, but it’s potentially an interesting data point. The other interesting piece was Bolton mentioning his intent to draw from AEI for his domestic policy. That actually gives a potentially big hint as to where Bolton would come down on domestic issues. If he does run–and staffs up with AEI fellows for his domestic policy staff–he’ll have some pretty good brains running his domestic shop. If you don’t know AEI, check them out here:
http://www.aei.org
February 28th, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Let’s say that Bolton receives 7% in the Iowa Caucus. Which other candidate’s base does he hurt the most? If any?
February 28th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Good question.
First, I doubt he does that well in Iowa. Iowa traditionally–ironically given the state’s name–has not been kind to hawks. If Bolton runs, I’d expect him to play heavily in security-conscious Florida and New Hampshire, and hope he can get a ticket to super Tuesday. Bolton needs a lot of security voters and Goldwater conservatives, and I’m not convinced Iowa is the territory for that.
However, if he pulls from anyone in Iowa, my bet would be Romney and Gingrich. Gingrich has the best shot of the “big four” to pull in security voters, since Romney, Huckabee and (if she runs) Palin don’t have a whole lot of foreign policy background. Of these three, Romney is probably the strongest on foreign policy issues, so some of his supporters could possibly gravitate to Bolton.
This is assuming he gets in; he reiterated to me a couple of times that he wasn’t sure, and I take him at his word (particularly since Santorum didn’t make the effort to say that). I think if Bolton does get in, it’ll be because he feels none of the other candidates can credibly address the foreign policy issues which he thinks are paramount. Not that I think he’ll shy away from domestic issues, but my read on him was that he’d only get in if he didn’t feel comfortable with the other candidate’s level of foreign policy discussion.
February 28th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
And for the new Palin fans who are about to scoff at my “if she runs” comment, let me briefly, succinctly, and finally lay out why she won’t run:
1. Palin’s chances of winning the nomination, let alone a general, are suboptimal. If she loses the nomination, she’s done. If she wins the nomination but loses the election, she’s probably done. Thus, she’d have to win the whole time to stay relevant, and that looks difficult right now.
2. If Palin doesn’t run, she automatically remains relevant. Palin’s endorsement, if she doesn’t run, is the best political capital any candidate could possibly have in the primary. This is because, while Palin’s supporters are probably not enough on their own to carry the day for her, they could, if combined with another candidate, give that candidate the nomination hands down. Meaning the nominee would owe Palin huge; she could write her own ticket at the convention, in the admin if she wanted it, or in a future campaign.
3. Contrary to popular opinion, Palin is not an idiot. If you dislike her too much to acknowledge this, then recognize that the people around her are definitely not idiots. In about 90 percent of her endorsement decisions in 2010, Palin spent her political capital well and wisely. She took the rap for her one catastrophic mistake (Christine O’Donnell), but I think personally that was a case of Palin running to get on the post-Joe Miller we-can-do-anything bus, rather than her leading the charge. You could call Joe Miller a catastrophic mistake, accept it wasn’t. The seat’s still Republican, and it’s not like she could endorse a Murkowski given the bad blood there. Hence, let’s just stipulate she’s not an idiot, and is perfectly capable of determining that, like Hilary in 04, she’s too hated by the opposition for this to be a good time. Unlike Hilary, she’s young enough that 2016 is not an automatic necessity for her if she doesn’t run in 2012. Hence, she will not squander her political capital on a wreckless gamble like running against the first black president when you have negative approval ratings, and will instead increase her political capital by endorsing someone else. Hence, she ain’t a runnin’. Anything which indicates to the contrary is an attempt to enhance the eventual value of her endorsement, when it comes.
I say this not out of any anamosity to Governor Palin, but rather because I think it’s the smart choice, and she’s a smart lady, so that’s what she’ll do.
February 28th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Attacking Iran is nuts, it’s just burning bridges to stop Iran from making weapons they can’t hit us with and wouldn’t even if they could.
We should just pull entirely out of the Mideast and let them take charge of their own countries. Our interventions over there are a dangerous addiction for us insofar as one ends up requiring others to support it, and before long, we are invading countries at will, shelling out billions to Israel and Arab dictators, and parking a whole naval fleet in the Persian Gulf.
We must change course before history forces us to.
February 28th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
1. If by “hit us” you mean launch a nuclear weapon at CONUS, you’re right. However, the greatest danger to the US from nuclear proliferation does not come from the thought of a nation-state firing nukes at us (deterrance makes this kind of unlikely), but from the instability in the region a general pursuit of nuclear weapons would cause and the possibility that Iran might take precipitous action against another regional actor. If Iran used it’s possession of nuclear weapons to shield it from the consequences of seizing the Saudi oil fields, we would be in a quite demonstrably worse position because of Iran’s nuclear status.
2. Middle east interventions are a must for any hegemon, as long as economies are oil-based. So, unless you’d rather see the Chinese, EU or UN holding the position we do in the international system, or unless we find a cheaper and more accessible form of alternative energy, they will be a fact of life for the foreseeable future.
February 28th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
We’d be better off in the long run not having an empire, that much I can say. Empires degrade themselves for good reasons.
I worry of what will happen when America does not have the money and power to dominate the region anymore, and we are consigned domestically to decades of stagnation or decline following an abrupt ejection from the region
It’s that internal question that worries me more than the external one of not having the control anymore.
And I think America’s internal problems and decaying society pose therefore far more serious threats. You can’t have a broken nation, fiscally and morally, running an empire.
Were we a traditional state actor in a dangerous world, under constant existential threat, such measures as securing cheap energy resources by force could be advocated as necessary for the existence of the state. I’d be amenable to us using military leverage to defend ourselves naturally. However, as the US does not and will not ever face existential threats from external forces thanks to its geographic immensity and isolation, it doesn’t really need to think in terms of the traditional power game. China could be more powerful than us, but they would not be able to successfully invade us for the reasons I mentioned. Is there any benefit to exercise of soft power and military power abroad, then, if it does not ensure preservation of the nation?
It seems to me like it just generates bad habits and troubles that our founders had warned us against.
March 1st, 2011 at 8:18 am
MPC:
1. Just as a historical note, you’re not correct about empires. Empires historically last _much_ longer than republics. Also, it’s sort of hard for the US to become an empire without the annexation of geographically contiguous territory. Setting up a global alliance system is more the action of a hegemonic republic, and a global alliance system is precisely what we’re building.
2. Depends on how you define “existential threat”. Technically, a nuclear strike by two or three warheads wouldn’t pose an “existential” threat, in the sense that the US could survive such a strike as a nation (it’s unlikely to happen, but this is just an example). However, the cost in human life, infrastructure damage and so on would be immense. Similarly, it’s very difficult to invade CONUS. It’s not very difficult to attack and kill a lot of Americans, particularly in a globalized world. And if you think, like Ron Paul, that the actors who wish us harm in the middle east will cease doing so the minute we pull out, you haven’t been reading what these actors are actually saying. Read Al-Qaeda’s twenty-year plan for some notion of the grandiosity of their ambitions. Now, Iran and AQ are different religiously, but the ambitions of the more radical elements within the Islamic Republic aren’t that different.
3. China being more powerful than the US would be extremely disadvantageous for a couple of reasons. First, modern China would not be a stable hegemon. There are deeply-hidden but very real systemic w3eaknesses in China which could lead them to a catastrophic collapse within ten to fifteen years. Were China to be a hegemon, in that eventuality, the consequences for the world would be disastrous. By contrast, while we conservatives may not like the direction American society is going socially or fiscally, the fact is that america is a very stable hegemon. Total societal collapse in the next century or so at least, is very unlikely. Second, China is not as well-equipped, culturally or militarily, to do a good job as hegemon. China has always been a primarily inward-looking power, until very recently. The middle kingdom complex is extremely deeply rooted. By contrast, the US’ sense of it’s own superiority is rooted entirely ideationally, meaning anyone can join the club–either domestically as immigrants or internationally as allies. The US is an outward-looking power, and always has been (the frontiers just used to be a lot closer). Outward-looking powers make better hegemons, because they have greater concern for global stability. And of course, stable and relatively benign hegemony is _very_ good for everyone, the US included, because it eliminates great power conflict.
The fact is, the US is not the relatively small, agrarian republic envisioned by Jefferson (and it probably never was). Thus, we can’t afford a foreign policy that assumes we are, or can be, such a nation.
June 9th, 2011 at 6:41 am
[...] March 4th, 2011 We did something a little different this time out. The material analyzed is from Race 4 2012 Interview with John Bolton. The top of this post is just John Bolton’s statements analyzed. We then used the NextStage [...]