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GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
GLENN: We have
Ambassador Bolton on the phone with us. Ambassador, welcome
to the program, sir. Thank you so much for joining me.
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Oh, glad to be here. Thank you for having
me.
GLENN: You bet. You've got a great book out. I just, I love
the title alone, "Surrender is Not an Option." I wanted to
take you through some of the points here on some of the
things that are going on. You say that the Bush or the Bush
administration that you knew just, you know, even a couple
of months ago is changing, fundamentally changing and making
some critical errors. What's going on?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well, I think the administration is
essentially in freefall when it comes to foreign policy and
it's a great tragedy because it essentially involves
abandoning some of the President's fundamental precepts
about how to deal with the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and the growth of terrorism, and a shift away
from some of the things he tried to do in the first term.
People ascribe a different reason. Some say it's a
concentration on Iraq, some say it's just lack of energy,
some say it's a phenomenon of a lame duck presidency. But in
any event it's a far cry from the Bush who was elected in
2000 in my view.
GLENN: Okay. I want to ask you something. I saw something
yesterday in the New York Sun. It was on the front page of
the Sun. I couldn't find it any place else and it was about
the State Department ending an Iranian freedom project which
sounded exactly like what we should be doing. It sounded
exactly like we were funding some of the democracy movements
inside. Why is the State Department stopping that?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well, it's a phenomenon that I think has
been running throughout the administration, but it's
particularly acute now. And I talk about this in the book.
You know, a lot of what I talk about in the book is what's
wrong with the United Nations, what's wrong with the
bureaucracy up there and how the membership operates. But
another thing I try and focus on is the State Department.
Because people have the view, you know, they think they
elect the President and he gets to set foreign policy. Well,
in the Constitution that may be the way it appears, but in
fact the State Department over the years has come to the
view that really it sets foreign policy, especially in
Republican administrations. And what has happened is that
the dominant culture of the bureaucracy, which is not
hospitable to Republican or conservative Presidents, has
been patiently wearing away at the President's policies and
is now in places like Iran, North Korea, the Middle East,
succeeding time and time again. And this one incident that
you just mention is another brick in the wall of the State
Department bureaucracy reasserting itself.
GLENN: Can I -- may I ask you, and I hate to take you down
conspiracy lane here. I just, I'm just -- ambassador,
honestly I'm just a regular American that didn't pay
attention to the world, quite honestly, before September
11th. The whole damn place over in the Middle East could
have fallen into a sinkhole in the center of the Earth and I
wouldn't give a flying crap, and I know that was wrong but I
didn't -- I just, I live my life here in America and I
thought everything was great. Now I'm watching everything
and I'm watching our sovereignty go to the United Nations.
I'm seeing stuff and I've got to ask ya: How is it we seem
to be going down this path that is so extreme left? When you
talk about the State Department having all of this power and
thinking that they dictate and it is not, you know, in a
conservative point of view, et cetera, et cetera, honestly
the things that McCarthy brought up come to mind. I mean,
what happened? How was it infiltrated? What happened to us?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: I think this is a problem that has
developed over decades because by and large secretaries of
state don't pay much attention to the management of the
State Department bureaucracy. And while there are many very
fine civil servants there who know what the proper role of a
civil servant is, there are a lot of other people very
influenced by their European colleagues who think that the
permanent bureaucracy basically runs foreign policy and
these pesky political appointees who come in every once in a
while have to be either tolerated or isolated or seduced in
order to do the bureaucracy's bidding. And that's one of the
reasons I think why the President now finds his policies
being reversed because they are very smart, very canny, very
patient and persistent bureaucracy.
GLENN: So how does a President or how does anybody fix this?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well, the first thing you need is a
Secretary of State in my view more like Jim Baker, and this
may surprise some people, but I think Baker's just about the
best Secretary of State we've had in the last half century.
And the one critical point that Baker never forgot and that
he always stressed was that he was the President's envoy to
the State Department and not the other way around and I
think both Secretary Powell and Secretary Rice and I think
in the book either started out in Secretary Powell's case
and Secretary rice's, they fell in the reverse role. They
were the State Department's envoy to the White House and
that has an effect and I think you can see it playing out
now in the Middle East policy, this idea of holding a peace
conference with Israelis and Palestinians, maybe this month,
maybe next month, who knows anymore, our deference to the
Europeans trying to negotiate with Iran, which is never
going to give up its nuclear weapons voluntarily. And this
belief that matches the belief in the Clinton administration
that you can trust the North Koreans when they say, as they
say repeatedly, "Sure, we'll give up our nuclear weapons." I
mean, it's been a huge U-turn for the administration on so
many fronts.
GLENN: Who does the State Department actually work for? Why
can't the President just say, we're clearing you guys out?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well, you know, Barry gold water who was
the first presidential candidate that I worked for once said
the solution to the State Department was to fire the first
six floors, all the floors below the Secretary of State. I
think that, as I said before, there are many, many strong
people in the State Department, and we need an effective
State Department. We need people who can advocate America's
interests around the world. Today unfortunately too many of
them are apologetic about our policies and about our
interests, and it requires -- this is not a campaign
bell-ringer issue. I understand that. But we have to have a
President and a Secretary of State who are committed to
changing this culture. Just as it was important to transform
the defense department, and it remains important to
transform our intelligence services, we need to do the same
thing at the State.
GLENN: All right. Let me go to the United Nations. I am
growing more and more concerned that, I mean, as you say,
there is -- you know, there's an agenda at the State
Department. I think there's an agenda in congress, I think
there is an agenda in the White House and they are not
necessarily a constitutional agenda in many cases. More
importantly there is a global agenda that you see played out
in the UN. We've seen it recently, and little things that
most people will say is stupid but I think it's the
indoctrination of our children. You've got the GI Joe doll
no longer being a Marine but now answering to an
international force, you have global warming that is going
on, you have the Law of the Sea treaty happening in the
Senate. I mean, there is a real selling of our sovereignty
happening. Agree or disagree?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: I think we're at risk. I don't think
there's any question about it. The Law of the Sea treaty is
an excellent example. You know, the mainstream media have
not pointed out that the entire Republican leadership in the
Senate has come out against the Bush administration, has
come out against the treaty, and thank goodness because I
think if enough citizens get in touch with their senators
and express their concern, we'll find the 1/3 plus 1 of the
Senate we need to block that treaty.
We went through this in the 2004 election. Senator Kerry
proposed, you may remember in the debates with President
Bush, what he called the global test, that American policy
had to get approval from around the world in all kinds of
different countries, and if we didn't get it, if we didn't
pass that global test, we shouldn't pursue that policy.
Well, this is the -- the issues you mentioned, global
warming among others, this is a global test playing itself
out still more and that's why I think next year's election
is so important. I don't think our policies should be
subject to a global test. I think they should be subject to
the tests of our Constitution and our own institutions and
representative democracy and if we're satisfied with those
policies, those are the ones we ought to pursue.
GLENN: How close do you think we are with the enemies within
our own gates, the strength -- I mean, I hate to even phrase
it that way. The strength of the United Nations, the growing
call for internationalism, et cetera, et cetera, and the
apathy of much of the American people? How close are we to
losing our sovereignty, do you believe?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well, I think it tends to dribble away
over time and I think people get discouraged. I think this
Law of the Sea treaty is an excellent example. It was
negotiated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I frankly
thought it was dead years and years ago, but like a bad
penny, it keeps coming up because the people who advocate
this sort of approach are very persistent, and it covers a
wide range of issues that are fundamentally domestic as well
because they see they can't advance their political agenda
and inside congress at the state legislature. So they go
international: Gun control, death penalty, abortion rights,
all of these things that, look, we have legitimate
Democratic debates over them and that's appropriate. But
they try, many of the advocates of gun control, abolition of
the death penalty, for example, try to push it to the UN or
the international arena where they know they'll have more
friends around the world, and I just don't think that's
where the vast majority of the American people are and I
think raising the salience of these kinds of issues in our
presidential campaign is so important.
GLENN: John Bolton, U.S. ambassador. Book, "Surrender is Not
an Option." Back in a second.
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