Bolton, speaking to more than 600 people attending Zions Bank's annual International Trade and Business Conference at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, said nationalism and the heavy intervention by governments in economic and energy policy still are potent forces to consider when companies think about foreign trade.

"I do think it's important to understand what the potential problems are, and then as business people you will make your own judgments where the balance looks best to you from an economic point of view and a political point of view," Bolton said.

Bolton served as the Bush administration's ambassador to the United Nations under a provisional appointment until he resigned in December after 16 months on the job. A long-time critic of the U.N., Bolton was opposed by Democrats and some Republicans as being too confrontational.

Zions Bank, which has staged five previous international trade conferences, sought Bolton because of his reputation for blunt speech, and he didn't disappoint. After setting the stage for his remarks, Bolton launched into a long discourse on the state of the world as he, a conservative Republican, has come to see it after a quarter-century of public service in the areas of trade, economic development and defense.

His first target was Russia. After the former Soviet Union collapsed, former President Boris Yeltsin pushed Russia to embrace democracy and free markets, Bolton said. But in the past five years, under Vladimir Putin's increasingly autocratic rule, Russia has grown more assertive in foreign affairs, he added.

Bolton said Putin is not afraid to use Russia's vast oil and natural gas reserves as a tool to influence governments in Western Europe and the Middle East.

He said Nicholas Sarkozy, France's new president, has a "sizeable anti-market bias," despite a pledge to shake up the country's economy. And he said Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's socialist president, has been called "Castro without brains."

Bolton said energy also is driving China's foreign policy. In its search for reliable sources of oil and natural gas, China has tolerated oil-rich Iran's efforts to develop nuclear energy, which the Bush administration and others believe can be used to develop nuclear weapons. China's thirst for oil is also behind its opposition to economic sanctions in resolving the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region, Bolton said.

Bolton said Chavez has alienated large numbers of Latin Americans by using Venezuela's oil wealth to influence elections in Bolivia and other South American countries and by stripping foreign oil companies of operational control over his country's oil assets.

"The best news about Chavez, is many Latin Americans now understand what a threat [he] is to their fragile democracies," Bolton said.

Bolton is less optimistic about China. He believes Chinese leaders who say they do not want North Korea to possess nuclear weapons. But China's opposition has less to do with anxieties that North Korea may launch a missile at China than with fears that Japan, Taiwan and South Korea might develop their own nuclear arsenals to protect their countries. China also worries that a collapse of North Korea could lead to a reunification of the Korean peninsula under South Korean rule that could put U.S. forces on its doorstep.

"So China does just enough to leave the [North Korean] situation in the status quo," Bolton said.

Bolton said India developed nuclear weapons to protect itself from China. In turn, Pakistan became a nuclear power to secure itself from India.

He said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who took power in 1999, may not be a legitimately elected leader, but he credited Musharraf with siding with the United States in its war on terrorism.

"For all those people who find Musharraf to be a less-than-satisfactory Jeffersonian democrat, consider the alternative," Bolton said. "This is a country where one bullet can make a big difference."

Musharraf's death might lead Pakistan down the road of Islamic fundamentalism, which could lead to an Islamic bomb and even a jihadist bomb, Bolton said.

pbeebe@sltrib.com