What a bunch of tools:

Bolton, whose contempt for the United Nations is only matched by his exasperation with the State Department, recounts the position Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer adopted in 2006 toward the "final and binding" ruling an international commission had reached over the Eritrean-Ethiopian border, the cause of a war that claimed some 90,000 lives. "For reasons I never understood," writes Bolton, "Frazer reversed course, and asked in early February to reopen the 2002 [Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission] decision, which she had concluded was wrong, and award a major piece of disputed territory to Ethiopia. I was at a loss how to explain that to the Security Council, so I didn't."...

Bolton's words confirm what those who follow U.S. policy in Africa sensed but could never prove: While presenting itself as a neutral player in a bitter contest between two African regimes, Washington has in fact played the old Cold War game, favoring realpolitik over international law - with disastrous results.

The article goes on to describe how the State Department allowed Ethiopia to reopen what all sides had agreed was a closed border dispute in order to bolster the Ethiopian regime in the short term. That's twice. One more time and it's a pattern!

Stories like this hint at the possibility that the State Department's actions towards Israel are less the result of anything like anti-Semitism and far more a function of incompetence borne out of narcissistic and self-important delusions of sophistication. It's not that there's no unseemly antipathy towards Israel among certain US diplomats. It's just hard to untangle that antipathy from misguided stupidity.

These are obviously the people who should be in charge of fixing the Middle East. Because they're so good at their jobs.

References:
* America's Latest African Blunder [Slate]
* Are They Really that Stupid? [MR]
* The Denial of the Obvious By Reference to the Irrelevant: Center-Left Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics [MR]

Previously:
* Some Things You Didn't Know About Hezbollah and Syria (Hint: Syria Has Lebanese Prisoners, Hezbollah Openly Committed To Destroying Israel)
* In Just Seven Short Paragraphs, Jimmy Carter Tells 2 Lies, Makes 2 Incoherent Arguments, Takes an Anti-Israel Stance that the State Department Mocks, and Just Generally Annoys the Hell Out of Us
* US State Department: Lebanon Is Not Responsible for Hezbollah