Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Association are all fired up over efforts to curb illegal arms traffic with the U.N. Small Arms Review Conference currently underway. Though the conference breaks for the July Fourth holiday, the NRA has used the Fourth (apparently a particularly auspicious time for gun owners and small arms traffickers alike) as an absurd rallying cry. Conference chair, Prasad Kariyawasamhas, received over 100,000 letters decrying U.N. efforts as an infringement on U.S. gun-owners and the second amendment. U.N. officials are baffled and rightly so at this uproar over a conference whose goal is to assess the efforts that root out illegal arms dealing or gun-running, which is said to kill 1,000 people a day largely in Africa and Latin America where countries possess little to no regulations on the trade.

But where could the NRA have possibly received such misinformation? Well, quite possibly from our U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. It seems Bolton lent the NRA’s bogus claims a boost by hinting at a larger agenda of the conference, an accusation which Secretary General Kofi Annan thoroughly discredited. A German newswire reports:

The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, charged that the conference may infringe on Americans' constitutional right to bear weapons. He vowed to defend that right when the two-week conference opens on Monday, saying that some UN members may have a 'larger agenda' aimed at the US Constitution's Second Amendment, which protects the right to own weapons. 'The message is clear: to the extent that there is a larger different agenda dealing with domestic gun control issues in the US, I don't think that it's an appropriate forum to discuss that,' Bolton said.

'There's nothing further from the truth,' Annan shot back. The officials spoke to reporters separately at UN headquarters in New York. 'It's legitimate that the UN, as an organization of sovereign states, to have concern about the welfare of people and want to do something about and bring order to small arms,' Annan said. 'We are not out to take guns away from the Americans, the intention is to make sure that guns don't get into the wrong hands,' Annan said.

While Bolton is certainly provocative and incendiary, he’s one of the smartest and best in the business making it unlikely that he was simply misinformed. So what could possibly motivate such misinformation that has the potential to galvanize 100,000 people on a single issue four months from midterm elections? One need not be named Hansel or Gretel to follow the breadcrumbs.

Like the spitting match that ensued between Mark Malloch Brown and Bolton over the role of the U.N. and its purported detractors of middle America, the flippant gun remarks may be another election-year stunt to fire up the Republican base. As The Economist pointed out over a month ago, even if gun clampdowns were within the scope of the conference, it would hardly pose a threat to US gun-owners whose rights are secured by a steadfastly loyal Congress. But this scuffle with Annan over the Small Arms Review Conference offers another instance of what former U.N. bureau chief for The New York Times, Barbara Crossette, described in her memo to Secretary Rice as Bolton’s eagerness to pick fights on small issues, or in this case, non-issues that hurt America’s interests and agenda. She writes:

One of Bolton’s most serious drawbacks is his difficulty prioritizing goals. Although he chooses his issues carefully, he becomes enmeshed in protracted battles over details with foreign diplomats that are unnecessary or, at the very least, poorly timed. At the State Department, he fought ferociously to exempt all Americans from the International Criminal Court. In so doing, however, he angered countries—including NATO allies—whose support was desperately needed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He did not seem to realize that compromise was necessary to serve American interests. At the United Nations, with 191 nations and foreign policies, compromise is inevitable. The trick is to know when to quit debating and cut a deal.

Take the case of UNESCO, the United Nations’ social and cultural arm. Fed up with its anti-American bias, the United States withdrew from the organization in 1984. After winning some important reforms, the United States returned to unesco in 2003. First lady Laura Bush was even dispatched to Paris to mark the American return to the fold. Yet by the fall of 2005, Bolton’s team was embroiled in a nasty fight over a draft Cultural Diversity Convention. Let’s be clear: The convention was clumsily written and contained provisions that were a transparent attempt to protect the French entertainment industry from competition. The way the United States (often represented by Terry Miller) went about opposing it, however, was disastrous. Almost all U.S. amendments were voted down unanimously; in retaliation, Bolton’s team voted against the agency’s budget. “Japan was particularly troubled and outspoken in opposition,” reports former U.S. diplomat Ray Wanner. “It is difficult to understand how this vote served the national interest.”

Bolton almost always has a solid rationale for the arguments he makes. But having U.S. representatives bravely charging up well-defended diplomatic hills only to be mowed down is not good strategy, particularly when it irritates critical allies. Your office needs to do a better job of making him choose his battles.

For all Bolton’s blustering on U.N. reform and this most recent tiff on small arms that may offer Republicans some election-year traction, President Bush and Secretary Rice know how much they need the U.N. behind them, particularly with respect to Iraq.

Today, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Richard Holbrooke, cites recent Bush-initiated outreach to the U.N. and reminds us of just how pivotal the U.N. will be to our national security strategy in terms of securing and rebuilding Iraq. Despite U.S. intransigence over funding renovations to an aged U.N. building—leaving aside its vulnerability to terrorist attack, simply failing to meet modern safety codes heightens its safety risk—Secretary General Annan and his deputy Mark Malloch Brown have already begun to lay the groundwork for an Iraqi compact to assist U.S. efforts in the region. Holbrooke writes:

It is, however, impossible not to note the irony and the implications of what has happened in the past two weeks between Washington and the United Nations. Once again, an administration that has underfunded, undersupported and undermined the United Nations has turned to it, almost in desperation, for help.

The lesson should be clear: Despite the enormously self-destructive actions of many other member states, especially the group of developing nations called the G-77, the United Nations still serves U.S. foreign policy interests in many important ways. Not only Iraq but also Iran, Darfur, Afghanistan and the difficult negotiations just started over Kosovo's final status -- all issues of vital importance to the United States -- have now ended up in the United Nations. To weaken this institution further, as has happened in recent years, serves no clear American national security interest. To strengthen it would make it more valuable to the United States and to every nation that seeks conflict resolution, stability and economic progress. With the maneuvering over the selection of Annan's successor underway, it is time for Washington -- and this must include Congress -- to put behind it a sorry period of confusion and offer the United Nations more support, both financial and political, in return for the things it needs in Iraq and elsewhere.

When a war of words erupted between Brown and Bolton, many cautioned the United States to pay greater attention to the indispensable utility of the U.N. for its own interests including Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens and journalist James Traub. Now whether Bolton likes it or not, the U.S. is turning to the U.N. for support.

And while the United Nations has served as a punching-bag for politicians seeking a new gig, U.N. bashing may not yield the returns it once did as the public has grown aware of its peacekeeping record and possibly even desirous of it playing a greater role in Iraq. A poll released by the Program on International Policy Attitudes in March of 2006 indicates bipartisan support for U.N. command in Iraq so long as other countries contribute more troops. In other words, Americans would not only support the U.N. heading up nation-building but security and military command as well in exchange for burden-sharing. This public confidence in the U.N. appears to part ways with the oft-expressed disdain by some politicians, and coupled with the administration’s newfound dependence on the international body, it just might take the wind out of U.N. detractors’ sails come election day.