Posted on 05/17/2005 5:38:48 AM PDT by SJackson
The confirmation theatrics in the Senate over John Bolton’s nomination as this nation’s United Nations Ambassador have featured not only the well-worn cast of Democratic Party leftists and old-line multilateralists from Foggy Bottom, but the behind-the-scenes accusation by Colin Powell — whose legacy as secretary of state is steadily going bust — about the nominee’s alleged meanness. Powell’s backbiting came as no surprise to those versed in Washington infighting.
Not much had been heard from Powell since President Bush unceremoniously dropped him from his second-term Cabinet without so much as telling him in advance that Condoleezza Rice would be taking over at State. The string of successes attributed to the much-maligned Bush Doctrine — the notion of democratic idealism espoused by administration heavyweight thinkers such as Bolton, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney, has served to underscore the failure of Powell’s global consensus, negotiations-based legalistic approach to fighting terrorism.
On issues of terrorism and confronting authoritarian regimes, history will show that Powell’s approach reflected a bygone era. He refused to call for regime change in North Korea, mistakenly relied on old-fashioned conference diplomacy in challenging Iran’s mullahs, resisted the use of force to depose the Taliban, and naively turned to the United Nations to head off Saddam Hussein.
Ironically, Powell’s one big success against the weightier strategic thinkers in the administration in winning over the president — taking the case against Saddam to the UN for the umpteenth time — led to the classic photo of him haplessly appealing to a dismissive Security Council about the Iraqi leader’s lurking menace.
So was it surprising that Powell surfaced in a rear-guard effort (one clearly aimed at redeeming his place in history) by attacking Bolton for lacking a softer and gentler persona in dismissing the advice of disgraced State Department and CIA “intelligence” bureaucrats?
Powell was grudgingly forced to accept Bolton as one of his six undersecretaries based on Vice President Cheney’s job recommendation. Years before, in his autobiography, Powell revealed his disapproval of a more muscular American diplomacy such that as championed by Bolton. In the administration of George Bush senior, charged Powell, Cheney and Wolfowitz had turned the Defense Department into “a refuge for Reagan-era hardliners.”
In his two decades of diplomatic experience, Bolton distinguished himself for mustering support to end the UN’s notorious Zionism is Racism resolution and for cobbling together a coalition at the international organization to enforce standards for Saddam to abide by following the first Gulf War. Bolton stood out among Powell’s entourage in opposing the foreign-policy culture that saw diplomacy as a legalistic operation designed to buy time. In Bolton’s view, the United States in the world arena should unapologetically use its power in puruing its vital interests.
Specifically, the record of how a visionless Powell dealt with Yasir Arafat underscores the contrast between the Powell and Bolton approaches to statecraft. At best, Powell’s performance might be excused for showing endless patience for that inveterate terrorist. But a more telling analysis would fault Powell for aimlessness, naiveté, an unwillingness to ostracize Arafat and a lack of intellectual honesty in his evenhanded criticism of the Palestinian and Israeli positions. Powell’s ongoing attempts to negotiate with Arafat stood in stark contrast to President Bush’s morally based refusal to even take a phone call from the Palestinian terrorist.
From the outset, Powell misjudged Arafat as a person subject to pragmatic arguments. In his first speech on the subject of terrorism as secretary of state, at the University of Kentucky two months after the chastening experience of 9/11, he tried convincing Arafat that terror was unproductive (note the absence of any denunciation of terrorism as “morally compromising” its perpetrators — subsequently a central point of President Bush’s case against Arafat): “The intifada is now mired in the quicksand of self-defeating violence and terror directed against Israel.”
In Congressional testimony later that month, Powell betrayed a startling lack of moral clarity in his understanding of the nature of terrorism by seemingly excusing the murder of Israeli civilians by Palestinians. “One man’s terrorist,” he declared, “is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Later that year, after his maiden trip to the area was greeted by a suicide bombing, Powell gave vent to the morally equivalent “cycle of violence” argument: “We’ve got to get beyond this period of suicide bombings and retaliatory actions or other defense actions.”
Upon meeting Arafat in December, Powell tried a different tack, warning the terrorist that if he didn’t go after Hamas, the fundamentalists would seek to kill him. Britain’s Daily Telegraph (December 2, 2001) ran the conversation:
“They are going to destroy you.”
“And he said, ‘Yes, I know.’ ”
“I said, ‘you’d better do something.’ ”
“And he said, ‘I know.’ ”
In analyzing Powell’s record on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, one looks hard to find any moral condemnation of terrorism. What emerges is criticism of terrorism as ineffectual rather than illegitimate. Thus Powell warned Israel and the Palestinians to stick with the administration-backed road map peace plan because sustained violence would only take them to “a cliff that both sides will fall off.”
Asked by Al-Jazeera television on June 23, 2003, whether “there is any legitimate resistance” by Palestinians against Israel, Powell again advanced the argument that terrorism had accomplished nothing for its perpetrators — and once more skirted the moral question of murdering innocent civilians:
“What has this kind of resistance achieved for the Palestinian people, whether you describe it as legitimate or illegitimate, whether it is terrorism or resistance; whatever you call it, let me ask the question this way, what has it achieved for the Palestinian people?”
Was Israel justified in killing terrorists who murdered innocent Jews? Here, Powell made the case that terrorism begets more terrorism, a position popular in the type of conference diplomacy rhetoric eschewed by Bolton. On the ABC News program “This Week” (September 7, 2003), Powell condemned Israeli assassinations of Hamas terrorist leaders: “To kill one Hamas leader, but wound 9 children or 10 children in the course of this, who will grow up to become Hamas leaders or Hamas killers later, they have to consider the long-term consequences of this policy.”
Ironically, Powell’s statement contravened President Bush’s address the same day (which might have been vetted by Bolton among others) in which he said, “We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans.”
While Bolton and other non-sentimental strategists in the administration increasingly focused on sidelining Arafat, Powell pursued his own version of diplomacy. In retrospect, one wonders whether Powell was joking in August 2003, after Arafat had no doubt ordered a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, when he issued the following appeal: “I call on Chairman Arafat to work with Prime Minister Abbas and to make available to Prime Minister Abbas those security elements that are under his control.”
In September, 2003, following Israel’s announcement that it was severing all contact with the Palestinian Authority (some fifteen months after President Bush’s condemnation of the “morally compromised” PA), Powell still refused to break relations. Falling back on Foggy Bottom’s legalistic approach to diplomacy, Powell insisted, “Yasir Arafat is the elected head of the Palestinian Authority and reflects the leadership that the Palestinians wish to have. So he still has the authority, that mantle of leadership given to him by the Palestinian people, and we will continue to work with him.”
Given the reformist wave represented by Bolton’s muscular diplomacy, is it surprising that his increasingly discredited former boss sought to deligitimize him for meanness (read, moral certitude)?
Ron Rubin, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press, is a professor of political science at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. He is the author of the recently published “Anything for a T-Shirt,” the biography of New York City Marathon impresario Fred Lebow.
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Pitting two respected individuals in the same administration is just another anti-Bush play. The media pitted Powell against Bush all through the first term. This is just a continuation of "THE PLAN".
Bump for later.
GRRR.....are you trying to ruin my day??
Well, "pitting" or not, Powell sure seems to be playing his "part."
Powell is a back-biting, back-stabbing political underweight who was one of Bush's worst choices. Probably selected on a recommendation from Bush I, another diplomatic lightweight.
Powell would have made a great Democrat secretary of state.
He amply illustrated that an ability to worm oneself upwards in the U.S. military hierarchy bears no connection with the Realpolitick of dealing with far shrewder, manipulative and duplicitous foreign diplomats.
He was out of his league.
Powel proved himself to be compatable with the anti-american, anti-republican HACKS infesting the state department. The culture that just delayed to keep information out of the presidents hands until kerry could be elected to office.
Bolton was what was needed in the fight against institutional incompetence of the bureacrats.
I am deeply saddened by Powell. Does that have a familiar ring to it?
A well-turned and accurate phrase.
Powell has all the leadership of a caboose.
"Powell has all the leadership of a caboose."
Well put.
The foreign leaders in the U.N. and southeast Asia recognized him for the sham he is.
Powel would have stayed on for kerry.
Powel's performance eNDED any presidential aspirations.
But there were many who were practically jumping up and down in ecstasy at the prospect of Colin Powell running as the Republican candidate for President just a few years back. They were ready to coronate him on the spot, despite any available information on various positions to determine whether he was conservative or not.
I see the same thing happening now with Condoleezza Rice--many on this board trumpeting her as a future Republican president. But do we know any more about her views than we did Powell's a few years back? Is she demonstrably more conservative than Powell and if so, where is the evidence?
"GRRR.....are you trying to ruin my day??"
LOL! No, I'm not.
I was reading the live thread yesterday posted by Ken 5050 and agree with you about Colin Powell.
I appreciated the link you provided from The American Thinker and thought this article could be added to the argument.
Lucky for us that he served a term as Secretary of State. Otherwise his weak, spineless, Carter-era approach to foreign policy might not have been exposed. Notice that he is no longer being pursued by the media as a Republican candidate for President.
Read Condi's biography.
Its too early at this point to coronate her - or anyone else.
Agree 100% - Powell was a failure from the get go!
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