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Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008
He went from being the Bush administration's voice of moderation to its leading advocate for war. With a diplomatic meltdown looming, the secretary of state is in the hot seat.
Mar 3, 2003 | Last summer, when Colin Powell convinced President Bush that the U.S. should go to the United Nations in order to build an international coalition for a war against Iraq, the secretary of state probably never envisioned an endgame like the one that's about to play out.
Instead of a crowning diplomatic achievement in which Powell proudly delivers to his commander in chief a unanimous U.N. resolution authorizing the U.S. to take action against Iraq, Powell is confronting a possible train wreck in which key members of the U.N. Security Council, after listening to his arguments for nearly six months, reject the American position and refuse to authorize war.
Most observers expect the U.S. to go to war whether the U.N. sanctions it or not. But that outcome would be a devastating blow to the White House, with major domestic and international repercussions. It would threaten Bush's standing with American voters, a majority of whom polls show want the U.S. to get the U.N.'s blessing. It would isolate the United States, breeding ill-will and making the international community much more reluctant to help the U.S. rebuild Iraq. For Powell himself, it would be an embarrassing defeat that would give fresh ammunition to circling critics both on the left, who have questioned his new hawkish stance, and on the right, who doubt his competence and judgment.
Powell watching has been something of a Beltway obsession almost from the beginning of the Bush presidency. Hawks determined to go to war with Iraq, and supporters of Israel who suspected him of representing the traditional Arabism of the State Department, have long had an evil eye for the secretary of state. Liberals, for their part, have seized on him as virtually the only voice of moderation in an overwhelmingly right-wing administration. As a result, his sudden backing for the war in recent weeks has led to intense speculation about his motives and true beliefs.
Liberals and moderates who saw Powell as a stabilizing force inside the White House feel betrayed and charge he's flip-flopped from a thoughtful, war-tested skeptic to an administration spokesperson busy peddling dubious intelligence.
"He's no longer making objective assessments and weighing the pros and cons," says Joe Cirincione, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the coauthor of "Iraq: What Next?" "He's been sent out by the White House to do P.R. He has little or no control over the war policy itself. And yes, his reputation is being damaged."
Nothing in Powell's history suggested that he was likely to advocate a preemptive strike against Iraq. After all, it was Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the first Gulf War who stopped the fighting after just 100 hours, saying he feared among other things that the nation would split into three parts. A self-styled "reluctant warrior," he described the Gulf War as "a limited-objective war," adding, "If it had not been, we would be ruling Baghdad today -- at unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships."
Most famously, Powell is the author of the so-called Powell Doctrine, which states that American troops should never be sent into battle unless there's a clear strategy, including an exit strategy; that the American public must have a clear understanding of a war's goals; and that wars should only be fought in the national interest, not for humanitarian goals or "nation building." Today, of course, critics charge that U.S. troops are now being deployed in the Gulf without an exit strategy, and Bush has explicitly cited humanitarian goals as part of the rationale for invading.
Historically cautious, Powell for the last year has been careful not to reveal his own thoughts about the war but rather, like a good soldier, to express the views of the White House. Experts say that makes it hard to know precisely where he stands and whether he's actually had a change of heart, is reluctantly toeing the administration's line because he wants to exert a moderating influence from the inside, or privately thinks war can still be avoided.
"Who knows, maybe years from now in his memoir we'll learn he was betting Saddam would back down," says Cirincione.
If Powell was absolutely opposed to the war and felt compelled to say so, the most logical recourse would be to resign. Rumors of Powell's departure have swirled regularly in D.C., with the latest gossip coming at the end of 2002. But with Powell's new hawkish ways, that talk has ceased -- if not speculation about what's in his mind. "I don't know whether it was a true transformation for Powell, or whether he thought, The most effective thing for me to do is remain on the inside where I'm still an internal critic," says George Lopez, director of policy studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace at Notre Dame University.
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