Posted on 09/14/2001 10:04:31 PM PDT by al-andalus
Powell comes to fore in Bush's hour of need
Veteran rises to occasion and moves closer to seat of power
Martin Kettle Saturday September 15, 2001 The Guardian
Throughout the 10 years and more since the Gulf war, public opinion polls in the US have repeatedly shown one man to be the most admired American of the era. In each of the two most recent presidential elections he has been under pressure to run for the White House. If he ran he would be hard to beat. But on both occasions he has stood aside. Today, though, as the US government struggles to find words and policies that measure up to one of the gravest crises in the nation's history, Colin Powell may find himself in effect the leader not just of his own country, but also of an unprecedented international onslaught against terrorism.
The Bush administration foreign policy power struggle, repeatedly predicted by Washington insiders, will be fought out over the next few days and weeks and will define not just the entire George Bush presidency but perhaps also the fate of the world for years to come.
The men and women who will compete for Mr Bush's ear on foreign and security policy during the anti-terror crisis cannot be crudely divided into hawks and doves, as they were during the Vietnam war era. By Vietnam standards, all are hawks of one sort or another, and many are veterans of George Bush Sr's administration, in which they fought and won the Gulf war.
What is more, in any US administration there is always a turf war between the state department and the Pentagon, and between the two departments and the members of the White House national security council, who directly advise the president about foreign policy on a day-to-day basis.
But there are major differences in approach between the key figures around the White House table over how far and how fast Washington should seek to impose its will upon international terrorist groups and the states it identifies as their "sponsors".
As Mr Bush struggles to reconcile the differences, he is certain to rely informally on a man who is rarely glimpsed but is very much present: the president's father, for whom so many of his son's key advisers also worked in 1989-93.
No secret is made in Washington that father and son talk regularly about foreign policy, and the initial, measured response to Tuesday's catastrophe bears the paternal hallmark. In the first months of the Bush administration, the centre of gravity clearly lay to the right of the spectrum. Vice-president Dick Cheney, defence secretary in the older Bush's administration, was the key figure, hand picking many of the occupants of the top foreign policy jobs, and pushing the case for a new military build-up centred on the national missile defence project.
But Mr Cheney's heart problems, and a fear among his colleagues that the vice-president was seeking to amass an unprecedented level of power, have meant that his influence could be waning slightly.
The same could be true of Donald Rumsfeld, the veteran defence secretary, whose attempts to reform the Pentagon have fallen foul of army, navy and air force chiefs.
That leaves two key players whose stocks have risen the longer the administration has been in office. Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, has fought a successful battle to ensure that she, not Mr Cheney, is the first person Mr Bush turns to for foreign policy advice.
In order to win her internal battle with Mr Cheney, Ms Rice has moved to the right, but she remains more cautious than the vice-president or Mr Rumsfeld, and certainly more so than Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, who has long advocated much greater US involvement in attempts to overthrow the Iraqi regime.
This leaves the hugely popular figure of Mr Powell, along with his friend and deputy at the state department, Rich Armitage. In the early days of the Bush administration, Mr Powell was sometimes in a minority of one among the senior team. He was overruled over Mr Wolfowitz's appointment at the Pentagon, and he was snubbed over efforts to explore a diplomatic solution to relations with North Korea.
But Mr Powell's position has been suddenly transformed by the terrorist attacks. Though he was in South America on Tuesday, Mr Powell headed straight back to Washington and has placed himself at the centre of the effort to hammer out the US response to the murderous attacks.
Already there are clear signs that the administration is responding to the crisis in line with the "Powell doctrine", set out by the current secretary of state when he was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff before and during the Gulf war.
While the sight of the official occupant of the White House does little to assure world opinion that America's response is in experienced hands, the sight of Mr Powell at his side has the opposite effect in capitals across the world, and even in the Islamic world. The man most Americans say ought to be their nation's first African-American leader is today closer than ever to the seat of power.
Seems to me this is just more rehashing of the pseudo-feud, all of which was created by the press to begin with. Yawn.
Safely tucked away, I hope. We can't have both the President and VP publicly at risk at the same time. Also, Cheney is a natural for drawing up war plans (resume: Gulf War Defense Secretary), so he might be involved with that activity. Unlike the last administration, this one has a VP that can take on a large "project" and run it.
This guy makes MacArthur look like a girl scout with stale cookies!
Unfortunately he has been an almost constant target of some of the most vile abuse here on FR.
When history looks back at this time, people will be in awe of the people who guided America through one of it's darkest periods.
I'm sick of these people who are second guessing and trying to stir discention where none exists. These people are here for a reason.
Oh yeah, and BTW Rev. Falwell and Robertson, if God wanted to punish America, he would have allowed this to happen during the Clinton years.
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