A King Without Court

When the U.S. government appointed John Bolton to be ambassador to the U.N., its propaganda machine tried to put a good face on the man and claimed that he can get things done. Unfortunately, as the vote on the creation of the Human Rights Council shows, he does exactly as the sceptics around the world expected—isolates the U.S. further from the rest of the world. The vote was 170 for, 4 against and 3 absent. The four against are the U.S., Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau. The absentees are Venezuela, Belarus and Iran. The three absentees avoided the vote because they do not want to appear to be voting with the U.S. And amongst the yes votes are most of the U.S.’s staunchest allies like Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. This can only be considered a complete diplomatic defeat, one that leaves no room for face. If this is the “effective” diplomacy the U.S. is going to practise, it may very well become the most irrelevant super power in history. But then, can an irrelevant country be considered a super power? What is a lead when no one, even it friends, agrees with it?