[Mb-civic] The Mirage of Colin Powell

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-powell16nov16.story

EDITORIAL

The Mirage of Colin Powell

 November 16, 2004

 Colin Powell is admired for being admirable the way some Hollywood
celebrities are famous for being famous. He is a charismatic figure with a
compelling biography, and Americans of all persuasions have a way of
projecting onto him their own views. Hence the announcement Monday that
Powell will be stepping down as secretary of State brings to an end one of
liberals' favorite dinner-party conversation topics ‹ whether it would be
better for decent Colin Powell to resign on principle or to continue waging
war against the hawkish Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice cabal from within.

 Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, will be Powell's
replacement at Foggy Bottom, senior officials said. We are underwhelmed with
Rice's track record in the White House, but there is little doubt that she
is close to the president and is the architect of the administration's
foreign policy. Because it does no one any good to continue having a
secretary of State who doesn't enjoy the full confidence of the president
and is not seen to speak for the administration, Rice would be a sound
choice for the job.

 Powell's tenure at the State Department was less heroic than often
suggested. He could have achieved more by resigning after losing one too
many battles, but instead he has tried to have it both ways, loyally staying
on while encouraging speculation that he often disagrees with the
president's more extremist ideas. Still, he does deserve some credit for
helping avert a war between India and Pakistan, for bringing all major East
Asian powers to focus on the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear program
and for getting the Bush administration to at least try to win U.N. backing
for the war in Iraq. He ended up tarring his reputation for probity by
delivering to the Security Council what turned out to be a fictitious
account of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction.

 On the whole, his instincts on such questions as when it is appropriate for
the U.S. to go it alone in the world are moderate compared to those of
others on the administration's national security team. But Powell probably
disagreed less with the overall tenor of Bush policy than his liberal
admirers would like to believe.

 One of the more curious aspects of Powell's career is that he has shied
away from a presidential run despite this sense of duty and his enormous
charisma. George W. Bush probably would not be president if Powell had run
for the office in 2000. His reluctance to do so may stem from the same risk
aversion that underlies the famous Powell Doctrine, which is that the nation
ought never to engage in a conflict absent overwhelming superiority and
certainty of success.

 Powell's risk aversion clouded his judgment on some high-profile policy
debates earlier in his career. As head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was
opposed to the Persian Gulf War and had to be swatted down by then-Secretary
of Defense Dick Cheney, who told him to keep his political views to himself.
During the Clinton administration, Powell did it again, undercutting urgent
calls for intervention to stop ethnic warfare in the Balkans.

 At the State Department, Powell was hardly the first chief diplomat who was
perceived as being at odds with his own administration. That's a bit of
tradition that dates back to the very first man who held the job, Thomas
Jefferson. And, as with Jefferson, Powell's ineffectual tenure at State is
unlikely to forestall future opportunities, though he will only deserve to
be admired if he candidly speaks out when he disagrees with administration
policies from now on.


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