British blast Bolton; bye-bye?

Steve Clemons will doubtless comment on this story in great detail tomorrow; for now, we’ll have to settle for the Newsweek article from its May 2 issue. John Bolton suddenly has a very public Brit problem, and it might be the straw that breaks his nomination for ambassador to the UN. From the piece by Michael Hirsh:

On several occasions, America’s closest ally in the war on terror, Britain, was irked by what U.S. and British sources say were efforts by Bolton to undermine promising diplomatic openings. Perhaps the most dramatic instance took place early in the U.S.-British talks in 2003 to force Libya to surrender its nuclear program, NEWSWEEK has learned. The Libya deal succeeded only after British officials “at the highest level” persuaded the White House to keep Bolton off the negotiating team. A crucial issue, according to sources involved in the affair, was Muammar Kaddafi’s demand that if Libya abandoned its WMD program, the U.S. in turn would drop its goal of regime change. But Bolton was unwilling to support this compromise. The White House agreed to keep Bolton “out of the loop,” as one source puts it. A deal was struck only after Kaddafi was reassured that Bush would settle for “policy change”—surrendering his WMD. One Bush official called the accounts of both incidents “flatly untrue.”

Hmm. I guess that means America’s closest ally in the war on terror is flat lying about Bolton. I’m sure Scott McClellan will put it just that way at tomorrow’s press gaggle.

With reports that Colin Powell himself is expressing reservations about greenlighting Bolton, the embattled nominee needed a lifeline instead of the anvil thrown to him by Newsweek. George Bush has a reputation for loyalty to his subordinates (though you may not want to ask Powell about that); we’ll see whether the pressure of continued allegations prompts the president to withdraw this nomination - or, more likely, to ask Bolton to withdraw himself.