Bolton Book Cites Effort to Halt Powell's Iran Initiative

WashPost

On the eve of the 2004 presidential elections, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell secretly attempted to shift U.S. policy on Iran by telling key allies he wanted to offer "carrots" to the Islamic Republic to halt its nuclear ambitions, former U.N. ambassador John R. Bolton writes in his soon-to-be-published memoir.

Bolton, then undersecretary of state, says that he worked hard to thwart Powell's plans -- only to discover, to his dismay, that Powell's replacement, Condoleezza Rice, would pursue the same approach in President Bush's second term.

Bolton's book, "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad," will be published next month by Threshold Editions. It provides a detailed look at key administration policy battles during the first six years of the Bush administration.......

Bolton reveals many private conversations and internal debates as the administration struggled to deal with such issues as the North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats, the tragedy in Sudan's Darfur region, the Israeli-Hezbollah war and deteriorating relations with Russia.

Bolton's recounting of these episodes adds to the growing body of insider accounts about the inner workings of the Bush administration, though this is one of the first by a leading conservative....

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In typically pugnacious style, Bolton lashes out at his opponents in the administration and overseas, repeatedly referring to European Union diplomats as "EUroids" and foes in State's East Asia and Pacific Affairs Bureau as "EAPeasers."

Bolton in particular criticizes Rice and one of her top aides, Undersecretary R. Nicholas Burns, for what he considers poor diplomacy. He recounts his anger -- and that of other administration conservatives -- at many of her decisions, especially her handling of North Korea, Iran and the Israeli war, arguing that Rice was too willing to make unnecessary concessions in pursuit of ineffectual achievements......