John Bolton Quotes (138 Quotes)

What we see is unanimous support for a very strong, very clear signal, and we're just down now to a very few fine points,

The objective we are pursuing is a peaceful and diplomatic effort to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and it's just not even on the horizon that anything like you've described is contemplated.

And we declare that any such action intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population or to compel a government or an international organization to carry out or to abstain from any act, cannot be justified on any grounds and constitutes an act of terrorism.

If for whatever reason the council couldn't fulfill its responsibilities, then I think it would be incumbent on us, and I'm sure we would press ahead to ask other countries or other groups of countries to impose those sanctions.

I agreed with the Nonaligned Movement today that we should have an intergovernmental negotiation process and that the entire text ought to be open, ... We are making progress. We are ready to go.

to meet their obligations to stop the flow of terrorist financing and weapons, and particularly on Iran and Syria.

As the Iranians develop longer range, more accurate ballistic missiles, it's not just Israel or other American allies in the region or American-deployed forces that are at risk from an Iranian nuclear weapon.

a more elaborate framework of goals, targets and indicators.

We are continuing to press hard for effective U.N. management reforms, ... We know the outcome document will only be a first step. But the first step is important.

The nature of the culture is such that the changes we want, both in the way the secretariat functions, and the way member governments function, needs to be changed in a substantial way.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush urged senators Thursday to put aside politics ... the right man at the right time for this important assignment.

We are prepared to talk directly with the North Koreans to explain what they have to do to come back into compliance with their international obligations, but we will not negotiate with them in a fashion that rewards bad behavior or that is submission to blackmail,

This cannot be seen as simply an American initiative,

North Korea today faces a choice, ... If North Korea wants to have a brighter future, it needs to fundamentally shift the way it operates at home and abroad.

Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests.

very dramatic news about the extent of Syrian involvement and involvement by top officials in the Lebanese government in this assassination.

We haven't made any decision yet on the specifics, but I think it should be a very strong resolution, leaving no ambiguity that we expect Syrian cooperation.

I am telling people loosen your ties, fire up the coffee pots, get ready for the weekend, ... We've got a lot of work to do.

In the bubble on First Avenue, Volcker is just ignored. I talk about it, but it's a solitary conversation.

All three of these countries are indeed states of very great proliferation concern -- especially North Korea, which uses its exports of military technology to finance other dangerous activity,

We're encouraged by what the Iraqi political leaders have done, happy that they're going to stick by the Aug. 15 deadline, ... And I think they have welcomed the U.N. and other international assistance, recognizing, of course, that it is a fundamentally Iraqi process.

We had a general discussion about the subject of the next secretary-general, which is part of our ongoing consultations among the five permanent members. But that's all really I can say.

We felt that if the Security Council acted without waiting for the AU, it would send the AU a signal. But no other country, including the United Kingdom and France, was with us on that. We think that's too bad.

This draft certainly does not live up to the expectations set by the secretary-general when he launched the process. And I don't think anybody claims that, and, in fact, the strongest argument in favor of this draft is that it's not as bad as it could be.

Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand.

Quite some time ago the president said unequivocally we support the development goals in the millennium summit declaration, ... Now that's different from the goals that were actually written by the secretariat. There is no backing away by the United States in the support for the millennium summit declaration.

I personally never asked anybody in the intelligence community to change a single thing that they presented, and I am not aware of any other official in this administration who did that.

This is the way the UN operates. And it goes to the question, which is a much longer term question, as to whether the culture of decision making at the UN is the most effective for the organization and that's something that's not going to be resolved today or tomorrow.

We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material - whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability - it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year.

It would be wrong to claim more than is realistic and accurate about what these reforms are. They represent steps forward, but this is not the alpha and the omega, and we never thought it would be.

We did not have sufficient confidence in this text to be able to say that the Human Rights Council will be better than its predecessor.

I thought it was a good example of how the council can work together effectively,

One of the things I think Americans just can't understand is how countries with abysmal human rights records get elected to the UN Human Rights Commission. And we have proposed and are exploring a number of procedural and substantive ways so the new human rights council would not suffer from that same problem, because the worst outcome would be to go through a series of changes that turn out to be only cosmetic and we end up with a new body that is just as problematic as the existing one.

It's important that we understand when talking about the relationship between actions of foreign policy and the notions of international law we have the sense of what actually happens practically, which is contrary to most academic views.

We certainly obtained a number of priorities that we felt were very important -- on terrorism, on human rights, on management, ... There are things we didn't get. This is a negotiation among 191 countries.

I think an inability on the part of the Security Council to deal effectively with the Iranian nuclear weapons program would be a signal that as we are committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, that we have to look at other alternatives.

We are preparing a resolution for the full council to adopt. It would impose the sanctions. It's a down payment, and certainly not the end of the sanctions process.

We think it is important to increase international pressure on Iran to get them to rethink the policy of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and thereby try and bring a peaceful and diplomatic solution to this problem.

We would like to move as quickly as possible but because of the necessity to talk to a number of governments, we will be conducting those consultations today and we'll have a better idea exactly what the timing will be.

whose pursuit of weapons of mass destruction makes them hostile to U.S. interests.

Many Republicans in Congress - and perhaps a majority - not only do not care about losing the General Assembly vote but actually see it as a make my day outcome. Indeed, once the vote is lost, and the adverse consequences predicted by the U. N.'s supporters begin to occur, this will simply provide further evidence to many why nothing more should be paid to the U. N. system.

We hope that the other four permanent members of the Security Council are aware of the long-term implications of these decisions, as we are,

We strongly support the commission's investigative efforts. We expect the government of Syria to comply with these requests fully and unconditionally as the Security Council resolutions require.

Being practical, Americans say that either we need to fix the institution or we'll turn to some other mechanism to solve international problems.

Too large an expansion would risk making it (the council) unable to quickly address challenges to international peace and security.

For me, it called back memories to 1990-91 and how the council worked during the Persian Gulf crisis, ... And I think if we could help get back to that kind of level of activity and cooperation it would be ideal.

We made it clear that was not something we agreed to for a target for ourselves,

After an initial read, the results are clearly troubling and will require further discussion with the international community.

There's no such thing as the United Nations. If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

We are very disappointed with the draft that was produced last Thursday. We don't think it's acceptable.