UN Ambassador John Bolton Interview

Atlas Shrugs sat down for nearly an hour with U.N. Ambassador John Bolton yesterday after the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1701 on Lebanon.  Pajamas Media has the complete audio of the interview.

Bolton has a lengthy answer to Atlas’s first question — why isn’t this just a hudna? — that includes an explanation of the Administration’s rationale and an assurance that “no one is under any illusion that a piece of paper will make it happen,” as well as a recognition that we are “barely at the beginning” of resolving this.

But perhaps even more interesting were Bolton’s answers to Atlas’s questions regarding the August 31 deadline for Iran to cease its uranium enrichment activities, the cooperation between Iran and North Korea, Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s intentions, and the next step if the Iranians do not deliver a positive answer by August 31.  Here is the bulk of his answers (with questions omitted):

You know we are, I think, as serious about this as Secretary Rice has been about anything:  that on August the 31^st, if we don’t have a clear and unequivocal “yes” from Iran — yes, they will stop their uranium enrichment activities — then we will go to the [UN Security] Council and seek sanctions; and in fact this is already on our minds since we’re now almost half way through August and have not only no signs Iran is likely to come up with the right answer, but continuing indications that it’s going to come up yet again with the wrong answer.

I will tell you — we have said this before — that there has been substantial evidence of cooperation between North Korea and Iran on ballistic missiles issues for several years.  You know the North Koreans had a moratorium on test launching from the Korean peninsula from 1999.  They were still doing tests of motors, and other tests, but no launch tests; whereas Iran during that same period was obviously continuing to develop its missile technology, conducting launch tests, using missile configurations that are basically the same family, the same type of missiles as North Korea. 

So I think there is little doubt that North Korea and Iran, at a minimum, have exchanged information and that the idea that North Korea had this extended moratorium on test launches didn’t mean they were not learning and gaining from the information that the Iranians were getting from their test launches.

[The possibility of Iran simply buying a nuclear weapon from North Korea] has been a concern we’ve had with North Korea for a long time.  North Korea is the world’s largest proliferator of ballistic missile technology, much of it sold to countries in the Middle East.  And they do that because they need hard currency to support the regime in power and also to continue to support their nuclear weapons program.  So there’s no doubt North Korea will sell almost anything for hard currency.  They counterfeit our currency, they sell drugs and weapons, and one of the principal reasons we don’t think that the threat of North Korea is limited to Northeast Asia but we think it’s a worldwide threat is exactly the possibility that they would sell a nuclear weapon, or weapons components or enriched uranium to terrorist groups.

One can only conclude from everything that [Ahmadinejad] said that he is continuing and in fact accelerating Iran’s nuclear weapons program and that he sees the acquisition of nuclear weapons as entirely within Iran’s interest — and of course once he has that capability, his public comments can only lead us to be concerned for the worst outcome. 

You know in analyzing military threats, you look at two things:  capabilities and intentions.  He has made his intentions very clear.  The only issue now is when he has the necessary capability.  So that’s why the question of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is a matter of urgency for us.

[I believe Russia and China will support sanctions] because they’ve committed at the level of foreign ministers that if Iran doesn’t give the right answer — doesn’t suspend all of its uranium enrichment activity — that they accept that there will be sanctions and that we will do that in the Security Council.  Now there remains a lot of hard work but that’s the commitment they’ve made.  And we’re going to take that commitment and use it in the Security Council. 

But I should say we’re not just going to rely on what we can do in the Security Council, because there are many steps that we can take outside the Council, and are taking, in Europe and Japan, in terms of currency and other kinds of financial transactions, to explain to people that if they’re doing due diligence from a business point of view, that Iran may not be the test country to do business with.  And there have been signs in the press for example that Japan may be reconsidering its investment in the Azadegan oil field, which would be very sensible. 

A lot of that is going on.  So we’re going to wait for this answer, but a lot of preparatory work is being done if Iran doesn’t give the right answer.

Bolton’s interview conveys a sense of urgency, but there better be a plan for after sanctions fail, since it is Five Minutes to Midnight.

Update: Prior posts at JCI about John Bolton (all worth re-reading in connection with his upcoming confirmation vote on September 7 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which in a bipartisan foreign policy world ought to be unanimous):

John Bolton’s 10 Stories

Bush, Bush, Bolton and Boschwitz

Bolton and Glick