The other day John Bolton published an op-ed piece in the New York Times urging the United States to bomb Iran. Not much of an issue there, Bolton is casually belligerent. The problem is with the Times printing the piece at all.

 Space on the New York Times op-ed page is the prime real estate in the world of national opinion leaders. It offers a clear signal that the country’s paper of record considers an idea worthy of dissemination. In offering space to Bolton the Times has violated both its readers trust and sense of memory.

To hope to persuade an author must should also be a person whom the audience respects and trusts. Bolton fails as a messenger in at least two respects.

First, he speaks as an authority on international relations and defense but memory tells us he was a cheerleader for President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, the greatest American foreign policy fiasco in decades. He was part of a neocon offensive that included advocacy from the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, and Richard Perle outside the government, and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in it. These foreign policy "experts" were confident in asserting Saddam Hussein’s ties to al Qaeda, his hoarding of weapons of mass destruction, and his nearness to developing a nuclear weapon. All of those claims were false. The neocons also claimed that American forces would roll over Iraq with ease and be greeted by Iraqis as conquering heroes. All wrong. In his op-ed Bolton argues that America should ally itself with Iranian opposition, “aimed at regime change in Tehran.” Sound at all familiar?

To state the principle simply, when your teenager gets drunk and totals the family vehicle, you do not buy him a new BMW and a bottle of Jack Daniels.    

The Times has its own responsibility. During the run up to the invasion, as recounted in Bill Moyers’ Buying the War, the Times and other mainstream media giants eagerly bought what the Bush administration was selling. The Times reporter Judith Miller published several highly influential articles confirming the presence of WMD. Those articles, as the Times later was forced to acknowledge, were based on false tales fed the reporter by a favored member of the Iraqi opposition.The late Times columnist William Safire regularly used his column to beat the drums for war.

To return to Bolton, the second problem with his reputation is that while he has infrequently shied away from sending others to war, he successfully evaded military service during the Vietnam War himself. He incredibly explained later that since by the time he got out of school anti-war protesters were in the ascendance, he could not see sacrificing himself in a losing cause. As for Bill Kristol, he was one year in the lottery and then the draft was cancelled (we weren’t taking volunteers then?). Dick Cheney, he had something better to do in the Sixties.

I do not mean to argue that we should only listen to those who have served, but that we should be cautious about crediting the war cries of those who have done all they can to avoid it for themselves. The principle at issue here was well stated by Abraham Lincoln in a “Fragment on Slavery” ([October 1, 1858?]: “But, slavery is good for some people!!! As a good thing, slavery is strikingly perculiar[sic] in this, that it is the only good thing which no man ever seeks the good of, for himself.”

In presenting the case for bombing authored by Bolton, the Times sweeps away respect for memory of the buildup and the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. It perhaps serves a useful purpose in exposing the nation to what could likely become one lynchpin of the foreign policy of the next Republican president. Bolton, after all, is a major figure of the Republican foreign policy establishment.

However, if a good case could be made for an attack on Iran, it would have to be made by a more trustworthy figure than Bolton. If a case from Bolton is as strong a case as can be made, then perhaps it is not worthy of being made at all; at least not in the New York Times.