What Is John Bolton Doing On The Op-Ed Pages of The Post?

John Bolton was so bad, even when the Republicans controlled Congress he couldn't get approved as UN ambassador, so Bush had to put him there through a recess appointment. He was a dismal failure, one of the first to be chucked overboard when the Democrats took over Congress. He is the least diplomatic diplomat, a UN Ambassador who thinks the institution is not only irrelevant but dangerous, and a bearer of pretty much every insane, discredited idea that neo-conservatives carry around in their heads.

Yet, while he has proved again and again to be not only wrong, but ignorant, the Washington Post provides him with some of the most coveted opinion space in the United States press to push the paranoid delusion that the National Intelligence Estimate released on Iran's nuclear program - you know, the one that said Iran shut down its research in to nuclear weapons four years ago - actually writes the following sentence after an incoherent attack upon the NIE:

Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.

In other words, the Iranians can now pursue what they have not pursued, and achieve what they have not attempted to achieve, because the United States correctly assessed that they are not doing anything.

Only paranoid schizophrenics "think" this way. This is the logic of conspiracy mongers, not policy analysts.

Again - what in the world is John Bolton - who looks like Professor Whovee from the Chuck Jones adaptation of Horton Hears a Who - doing on the op-ed page of the Washington Post?