No friend of the UN

IN APPOINTING John Bolton, an abrasive ideologue hostile to international treaties and cooperation, as the US ambassador to the United Nations, President Bush has put at risk his own second-term project of reviving the mainstream internationalist tradition of US foreign policy.

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This reorientation of policy was on display in Bush's recent engagement in the sort of direct dialogue with European leaders that his father practiced with success during the dramatic era when the Cold War was brought to a bloodless conclusion.

The United States needs allies and partners in the struggle against reactionary Islamist terrorists, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, to help the Lebanese win independence from Syria, to keep Afghanistan from descending into warlordism, to help Iraqis establish a democratic federal state, and to help relieve poverty and disease in Africa. For these worthwhile goals the United Nations remains indispensable.

So the nomination of Bolton as this country's voice at the United Nations -- a figure who has openly and crudely demeaned that institution -- raises unsettling questions about the seriousness and consistency of Bush's declared intention to seek multilateral cooperation.

Originally a protege of Jesse Helms, the isolationist former Republican senator from North Carolina, Bolton has a consistent record of seeking to thwart diplomatic resolution of nuclear proliferation threats from North Korea and Iran; opposing the UN civil administration missions in East Timor and Kosovo; and arguing against the existence of any ''right of humanitarian intervention to justify military operations to prevent ethnic cleansing or potential genocide."

If Bolton were to apply this doctrine to the genocide being perpetrated in the Darfur region of Sudan, he would be aligning Americans with the mass murderers of the National Islamic Front that rules Sudan and with regimes such the one in Beijing, which has been willing to turn a blind eye to the deaths of 10,000 people a month in Darfur.

Democratic senators and Republican moderates wary of having such a doctrinaire unilateralist represent this country at the UN may not succeed in blocking his confirmation. But they are entitled to get him on the record in confirmation hearings in support of UN activities such as peacekeeping and organizing elections -- activities that the rest of the world commends and that serve American interests. If there is a silver lining to Bolton's UN appointment, it would be that he would be kept away from a policymaking role at the State Department or the White House. If Bolton is confirmed, he must not be allowed to deform or deflect the more internationalist foreign policy Bush has at last begun to follow.