John Bolton. You remember him, don't you? He was the man who partially built his career by promoting U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations, if not the total destruction of that body, and then received a recess appointment from George W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the UN. Then, Bolton being considered totally unqualified for the job regardless of his politics, one year later, Bush couldn't get him confirmed for the job even by his rubber-stamp Republican Congress.

In an editorial role I had with another progressive political Web site, I received an e-mail from a member of the right-wing lawyers organization, The Federalist Society. Bolton was to be meeting with one of their branches, dealing in part with the question of his proposed policy towards Iran. It was summed up in this e-mail as being: "Either Iran will acquiesce or it will face dire consequences." In this presumably tongue-in-cheek e-mail, I was asked what questions I might pose to Mr. Bolton were I to be invited to that meeting.

One can wonder about the motivation of the writer of the e-mail. One can also wonder if Bolton would ever open himself up to questions from hostile questioners in a public forum, but those are questions for another day.

Here is the list of questions that I would have asked of him, and indeed of every other proponent of unilateral U.S. military action against Iran such as Norman Podhoretz, former foreign policy advisor to former GOP Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

* What is Iran to "acquiesce" about and what does he mean by "dire consequences" should they not do so?

* If "dire consequences" includes some kind of unilateral military strike by the U.S. against Iran, having been the U.S. UN Ambassador, has he ever read the UN Charter? Are you aware that, as a ratified treaty, it is part of the U.S. Constitution (see Article VI)? Then, are you aware of Article 51 of the UN Charter, which prohibits pre-emptive war?

* What would he expect to accomplish by instituting whatever it is that would bring those "dire consequences"?

* Had he considered the possibility of negotiating first to bring about his desired results?

* What taxes would he raise to pay for whatever action he has in mind, given that the U.S. is already borrowing $12 billion a month for Iraq/Afghanistan, and faces seemingly unlimited unfunded costs for those wars, according to the forthcoming book from former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Joseph Stieglitz?

* When would he expect to re-introduce the draft to provide the manpower for what would certainly be another "war without projected end"?

* How would he propose to deal with the invariably overwhelmingly negative reaction from around the world to whatever action he has in mind, and what violence towards the U.S. at home and abroad that it would likely provoke, because "dire consequences" implies a major such negative reaction?

* Has he checked out his position with Mike Huckabee, still a possibility for the Republican vice presidential nomination, for whom he is a major foreign policy advisor (beginning with, does the Rev. Huckabee know where Iran is)?

* Finally, is he also a foreign policy advisor to Sen. John "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" McCain, for he presumably would be for sure were McCain to choose Huckabee, which he very well might do? If so, would he kindly pass these questions along to the Senator?

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly Contributing Author for the Web zine The Political Junkies.net [1]; a Special Contributing Editor for Cyrano's Journal Online; and an invited contributor to the Web log The Daily Scare [2].

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