Facing an increasingly hostile group of law students in an Oxford seminar that had somehow gone dreadfully wrong, beads of sweat began to pop out on John Bolton’s furrowed brow. Amidst a rising chorus of taunts, jeers, hisses and outright denunciations, Bolton was swiftly surrounded by his entourage of three American security agents and whisked out the door of the seminar room at Oriel College on Friday, the 9th of June.
Pursued by vocal recriminations from angry and frustrated American students who led the incisive questioning and the equally incisive jeering -- with taunts like, “You should be doing a better job!” Bolton bolted. He turned sharply on his heel and took flight out the door and then fled down the mediaeval passageway and into the relative safety and calm of his bullet-proof diplomatic limousine. Bolton swiftly headed out of Oxford, rudely foregoing the well-established tradition of lingering to talk with interested members of the audience
<snip>
During the question period, Bolton recognized a law student who politely asked him to justify the application of a double standard in the Middle East that favors Israel over Syria or other Muslim nations. Detecting the student’s accent, Bolton pointedly asked, “Where are you from?” The student was Syrian. On that note, Bolton refused to answer the question, and instead he criticized Syria for what he deemed to be its unwarranted interference in the Middle East and Lebanon even though they withdrew their final 15,000 troops last year. From a historical perspective, it is ironic that Bolton would have cited this case, for Syria was invited to provide security operations in Lebanon by the Maronite Christians with the tacit approval of the United Nations and the support of the Arab League. The hypocrisy at the heart of his own case - since he represents a hegemonic power with more than one hundred and thirty thousand uninvited troops on the ground in Iraq, thousands more uninvited troops in Afghanistan and which now threatens to launch a new war against Iran - was lost on Bolton. But, Bolton’s hypocrisy was not lost on his perceptive audience who now zeroed in on him with a barrage of pointed questions.
[ How polite and, er, diplomatic, to respond to a reasonable question with invective about the questioner's nation! The US should be proud of having such a mature and sensitive representative in the center of world affairs! ]
<snip>
n what was rapidly becoming his interrogation, a woman from America questioned Bolton about the need for a balanced approach where America would represent the best interests of the world at large rather than its own particular regional self-interest. At that point, Bolton fumbled. In a clumsy and misguided attempt to turn the tables on his adroit and incisive challengers, Bolton threw out a question of his own. He called for a show of hands of those in the audience who were British. Bolton then asked how many of them wanted the British Ambassador at the UN to represent the interests of Britain. Only one or two hands were raised. Then he asked to see a show of hands of those British subjects who wanted the British Ambassador at the UN to represent not only the interests of Britain but also the collective interests of the other members as well. At least a dozen hands went up into the air. Stunned, Bolton was dumbfounded and said rather witlessly, “I would have gotten a different result in America.”
[ Obviously Bolton is a speaker who knows well how to endear himself to his audience with the force of his rhetoric! ]
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