Bolton sees every international situation as an opportunity to make war, notwithstanding the United Nations Charter that mandates the peaceful resolution of disputes and forbids military force except in self-defense.
After two world wars claimed millions of lives, countries around the globe -- including the United States -- came together and established the United Nations system, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."
Yet in 1994, Bolton famously claimed, "there is no such thing as the United Nations." He stated caustically, "If the UN Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
When Bolton officially withdrew the US signature from the International Criminal Court treaty, he declared it "the happiest moment of my government service."
Bolton Led the Charge to Invade Iraq
Bolton led the charge to invade Iraq and forcibly change its regime in 2003, falsely claiming that President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In 2002, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter affirmed that Hussein had destroyed 90-95% of its WMD; the remaining 5%, Ritter said, "doesn't even constitute a weapons program ... just because we can't account for it doesn't mean Iraq retains it. There's no evidence Iraq retains this material."
To bolster the case for war, Bolton pushed Bush to include in his State of the Union address the false statement that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, over the objection of the State Department.
Before the US invaded Iraq, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was no evidence Hussein had any viable nuclear program. Hans Blix, chief inspector of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, verified that weapons inspectors had found no evidence of WMD.
In 2002, Bolton orchestrated the ouster of Jose Bustani, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, to prevent him from inspecting and revealing that Hussein had no chemical weapons. When Bustani argued he should stay in the post, Bolton threatened, "You have to be ready to face the consequences, because we know where your kids live."
No WMD were found after the US invasion of Iraq. Some one million Iraqis were killed and the US-led regime change led to a vacuum of leadership that was filled by ISIS.
A 2006 report prepared under the direction of former Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) concluded that "members of the Bush Administration misstated, overstated, and manipulated intelligence with regards to linkages between Iraq and Al Qaeda; the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iraq; the acquisition of aluminum tubes to be used as uranium centrifuges; and the acquisition of uranium from Niger."
Those "misstatements were in contradiction of known countervailing intelligence information, and were the result of political pressure and manipulation." A key source of that pressure and manipulation was Bolton.
In spite of the horror the US military unleashed on Iraq 15 years ago, Bolton wrote in 2016 that the removal of Hussein was "a military success of stunning scope and effectiveness, achieved in just three weeks."
After the disastrous US invasion of Iraq, Bolton tried to get the Iran file removed from ElBaradei in order to lay the groundwork for an unjustified attack on Iran.
Bolton Wants to Rip Up the Iran Nuclear Agreement
Bolton favors bombing Iran and changing its regime and he opposes the Iran Nuclear Agreement. He has advocated an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities and encouraged the United States to support it.
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