Inside the Ring

Bolton fallback

Some congressional staffers are talking up a fallback position in the event that John R. Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is not confirmed by the Senate in his current post.

President Bush made a recess appointment in August 2005, after Democrats and one Republican blocked his confirmation. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, wants another committee vote. But now Sen. Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island Republican, who is in a tight re-election battle in a liberal-leaning state, is balking.

With confirmation prospects looking dim, Mr. Bolton’s recess appointment will expire when a new Congress convenes Jan. 3.

The fallback: Mr. Bush could name Mr. Bolton as a deputy U.N. representative, a non-confirmable position, and then name him “acting” U.N. ambassador. Such a move would require some musical chairs of current deputies in the U.S. representative office in New York.

During a meeting at The Washington Times this week, we asked R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, about such a deal. “We want confirmation,” he said. “We do not discuss fallback positions.”

Iran option

A former Navy intelligence officer weighs in on how the world will stop Iran from building nuclear bombs:

“I really believe the Israelis are going to strike [Iran’s] several uranium processing factories soon. They cannot survive a first strike. This time, unlike when they sent eight F-16s to destroy the Iraqi reactor Osirak, I think they will use the Jericho missiles and the submarine-launched, nuclear-tipped Tomahawks to do nuclear strikes. Most of the factories are 150 meters underground and too deep for bunker busters.”

SLAM-ER

Boeing recently conducted a successful flight test of the Navy’s extremely accurate Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response, known by the appropriate acronym, SLAM-ER. The test was against a simulated Iranian Shahab-3 mobile missile and a Russian-made SA-10 air defense missile.

The SLAM-ER scored a direct hit against the moving SA-10 target at the Navy’s China Lake, Calif., air warfare test center on Sept. 13, the company said.

That test followed a June 1 flight test missile attack against a Shahab-3 missile launcher mock-up.

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