DANIEL DREZNER: “Is Mark Malloch Brown really a diplomat?”

I wager to say that Bolton is hopping mad about this. How do I know? Because I, a lowly blogger, was e-mailed this story by Bolton’s deputy press secretary. And I’m guessing others were as well.

Bolton might be mad, but he’s also right — the speech will hurt the UN more than it will help it in this country. Brown’s speech will do for U.S. attitudes towards the UN what Mearsheimer and Walt’s “Israel Lobby” article did towards elite attitudes towards U.S. policy towards the Middle East — it will roil everyone up, but the kernels of insight contained in the speech (Brown makes a good point about the merits of UN peacekeeping) will be safely ignored because of the rhetorical and conceptual overkill.

There is one big difference, however — Mearsheimer and Walt were academics trying to be provocative — Brown is ostensibly a UN diplomat. He says his speech was meant as, “a sincere and constructive critique of US policy towards the UN by a friend and admirer,” but in characterizing Middle America as moronic xenophobes, he’s creating the very attitude he seeks to change.

I think that Brown should address “root causes.” Perhaps an end to rampant corruption and incompetence — and puerile anti-Americanism — at the United Nations would do some good. But how likely is that?

UPDATE: A Malloch Brown Fisking at L’Ombre de l’Olivier.