Hey UN: Put up, or shut up.

Stratfor

U.S. President George W. Bush has appointed John Bolton, who has been serving as the undersecretary of state for arms control, as the ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton is among the most hawkish of Washington's "neoconservatives," and his appointment immediately triggered a chorus of groans and exasperated forehead-slapping from Democrats and foreign governments alike. The immediate conclusion is that the Bush administration is out to destroy the United Nations -- but if for no other reason than that we're talking about someone Pyongyang has felt necessary to label "human scum," the appointment deserves a closer look.

In fact, there is some extremely deep diplomacy going on here. Bolton belongs to the "put-up-or-shut-up" branch of American neocons, believing that the United Nation's original charter prescribed a much more activist organization -- where resolutions would be strengthened by possible consequences if violated, often including the use of force. In Bolton's mind, the Korean War is precisely the type of military action the United Nations was designed to authorize and carry out.

This is, needless to say, very different from the circumstances surrounding the Iraq war of 2003 -- in which the Bush administration, we believe, hoped that the United Nations would not go along with U.S. requests. The whole point of the war was not to oust Saddam Hussein but to intimidate Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia into acting against al Qaeda on Washington's behalf. Bush wanted to scare regimes that supported or enabled al Qaeda by placing uninvited, unsanctioned American armored divisions -- not a sea of polite blue helmets -- in the sands of Iraq.

Now, with Bolton as its spokesman at the United Nations, we expect the administration to pursue such policies as empowering the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take action against nuclear proliferators, as opposed to simply languishing as the talk shop it has become. And of course Bolton wants the U.N. Security Council to take a tougher line -- backed by threats on which it can deliver -- against a wide array of targets. Perhaps most aggravating to traditional U.S. allies will be Bolton's stalwart opposition to U.N. Security Council reform: Most of the proposals on the table would include giving countries such as Japan and Germany permanent representation, complete with veto power. Needless to say, there will be some angry, disappointed delegates around the big table -- especially for those who had hoped to see a course adjustment (or at least a tonal adjustment) during Bush's second term.

Had the administration simply wanted to destroy the United Nations, it would have appointed someone far less controversial and independent-minded who would simply rubber-veto U.N. Security Council resolutions ad nauseam. As Bush pointed out during his first term, the United Nations is relevant only if it takes steps to enforce its own dictates.

Bolton feels the same way. He believes the U.N. system is not necessarily irredeemable, but simply discredited. Rather conveniently, he has two ready-made test cases waiting: North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while Iran is, at best, attempting to skirt the IAEA on technical grounds. In effect, both states have -- in the eyes of the United Nations -- placed themselves outside of the system, and are therefore squarely in what Bolton and his neocon circle feel are the United Nations' crosshairs. Bolton's task will be to get the United Nations to act against them -- not for American interests, but to prevent the United Nations from sliding into total irrelevance.

In the four years to come, the United Nations is likely to have several "legitimate" targets, from the neocons' point of view. In his second term, Bush seems committed to finishing the work not just of his first administration, but of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations as well. The White House has made no secret of goals that include not only tying up the final loose ends of the Cold War and completing the rollback of Russian power, but also of extending that geopolitical effort to Communist East Asia and the Middle East.

It is quite the to-do list, but the administration is off to an energetic start. We fully expect Bolton's attempts to turn the United Nations into a tool of American power to elicit more colorful comments from Pyongyang -- and elsewhere.