The Cost of Not Firing a Traitor
Bolton Book Cites Effort to Halt Powell's Iran Initiative
Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 22, 2007; Page A07
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.
. . . "Along with others, I had foiled Powell's legacy gambit. I knew it, and he knew I knew it."
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John Bolton is probably the most universally disliked man in the foreign-policy business--or was, until Congress put him out of that …