Left behind: Bush has Powell where he wants him - powerless

[Jeffrey C. Dege]

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/09/09/stirevopn02006.html?999

September 9 2001
OPINION

Left behind: Bush has Powell where he wants him - powerless
Photograph: Larry Downing
Powell gets outflanked on the right

When Colin Powell emerged as George W Bush's secretary of state,
interventionists on both the American right and left groaned.

This was the man who opposed the Gulf war, and who opposed even aerial
intervention in the Balkans on the grounds that "no American president
could defend to the American people the heavy sacrifice of lives it
would cost to resolve this baffling conflict".

This was the man who opposed the only successful operation in Somalia (the
brief initial invasion) but supported the humanitarian nation-building
that led to disaster. He was also the man who had come closest of any
general since Douglas MacArthur to dictating to his civilian commanders
what they could and couldn't do.

When he faced the new and inexperienced President Clinton in 1993,
Powell eviscerated Clinton's military authority as commander-in-chief -
even to the point of publicly opposing the administration's policy of
allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

No doubt Powell believed that he could do the same with the even
less experienced new President Bush. After all, he had a very strong
hand. Powell had been instrumental in persuading nervous suburban voters
in the election that Bush would not be running foreign policy alone.

Powell's racial background also helped give the administration a more
inclusive face. Because of his history, reputation and celebrity, he
was all but unsackable. And for the first time, Powell occupied the most
senior foreign policy post in the administration.

With the media in his lap and widespread popular support, he clearly
believed he would be the central architect of the new administration's
foreign policy. And then reality struck. Early on, Powell simply
asserted that the Bush administration would pick up where the Clinton
administration had left off in dealings with North Korea.

Almost immediately, he was told this was not the new administration's
policy. He had to trot out in front of the television cameras to recant. A
sceptic of national missile defence (NMD), Powell had to sit back and
watch the administration make it the top foreign policy priority.

With Russia, he soon found out that he was not going to have a key
role. Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, was dispatched
for one-on-one meetings with Putin, and Bush himself pioneered the
relationship.

On Iraq and the Middle East, Powell was equally isolated. His plans for
weakening sanctions against Saddam were scotched; his desire to continue
the Clinton administration's micro-management of the "peace process"
faded into the more hands-off approach of Bush.

And then last week came the ultimate rebuff. For months, Powell had been
extremely eager to go to Durban as a symbol of America's racial inclusion
and commitment to combating racism. But as anti-Semites and bigots took
over the conference, Bush sent a junior delegation instead and withdrew
it as soon as it was clear no compromise was possible. Powell had been
denied the mother of all photo-ops: preening as an ambassador of racial
conciliation in South Africa. But if Powell had gone to Durban, he would
have been humiliated.

The difference with 1993 couldn't be starker. Bush is no Clinton: he has
strong views on foreign policy and has assembled an impressive team to
check Powell's squishiness.

Dick Cheney is the most significant. He'd seen Powell in action during
the Gulf war and, while respecting him, knew his limits. "You're not
secretary of state," Cheney informed him once. "You're not the national
security adviser any more. And you're not secretary of defence. So stick
to military matters."

As vice-president, Cheney hired a hawkish Middle East aide, John Hannah,
to correct Powell's Clintonian tendencies. Donald Rumsfeld, the defence
secretary, snapped up Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith as right-hand
men - both keen advocates of NMD and strong supporters of Israel. And
they are flanked by the NMD enthusiast John Bolton as undersecretary of
state for arms control and international security.

But the biggest surprise is Condi Rice. If anyone was supposed to be a
front woman, it was Rice. Instead, she has used her personal rapport
with Bush, developed over many years and honed as she prepped him on
foreign policy during the campaign, into a major power base.

While Powell is ensconced in the State Department, several blocks from
the White House, Rice is down the hallway from the president. She - not
Powell - is the friend at the Crawford ranch. "A lot of this is personal
chemistry," a top Bush aide said last week. "Condi and the president
are very close. They're friends. He trusts her. That means a lot."

As Rice's stature grows, it also means another thing. Powell is eventually
sackable. And a black, conservative woman could be his replacement.

In all this, liberal critics of the administration's robust realism in
foreign affairs have become increasingly desperate. Whereas Powell was
very much in the centre of George Bush Sr's centrist administration,
he is now clearly isolated in the far more conservative regime of his son.

Will Powell come back? Many European diplomats hope so - especially the
British Foreign Office. But on the critical issue of missile defence,
there's no evidence it would make much difference anyway. Powell has
expressed his enthusiasm for missile defence - a view he has clearly
adopted to survive internally. But in many ways Bush has Powell exactly
where he wants him. He can be used occasionally as a good cop in
international affairs, soothing over ruffled feathers abroad, acting
as a symbol of calm and moderation at home, while being essentially
powerless in the real decision-making of the administration. Powell,
naturally, doesn't see it this way and spins his precarious position well.

"Do you know how worse it would be without me?" he has allegedly quipped
to friends. To which the Bushies quietly respond: "Keep believing that,
Colin. Keep believing it."

--
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist,
fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria.
The human race divides politically into those who want people to be
controlled and those who have no such desire.
- Robert Heinlein