March 23, 2003
Why Colin Powell Should Go (BILL KELLER, March 22, 2003, NY Times)
The famous hardheaded definition of war is "the continuation of politics by other means." In the real world, though, war is the failure of politics. This war - undertaken at such cost to America's own interests - is specifically a failure of Colin Powell's politics.Even if you believe that this war is justified, the route to it has been an ugly display of American opportunism and bullying, dissembling and dissonance. The administration has neglected other lethal crises around the world, alienated the allies we need for almost everything else on our agenda and abandoned friends working for the kind of values we profess to be exporting.
When the last insincere whimper of diplomacy failed this week, I happened to be in Pakistan, where those who speak up for the values we espouse live with death threats from Islamic zealots. As America moved on Iraq, it was heartbreaking to hear the despair of these beleaguered liberals. They are convinced that their cause - our cause - will now be suffocated by anti-Americanism, not because we are going to war but because of the way we are going to war.
Let's hope they are wrong, and let's hope the war is a quick success, and let's hope President Bush can regain the good will that accrued to America after Sept. 11. But on the battleground of ideas - on the issue of how America uses its power - Mr. Powell seems to me to have been defeated already. When the war is over, when his departure will not undermine the president during a high crisis, he should concede that defeat, and go.
It must be a need to stay on the good side of Howell Raines that causes Mr. Keller, who's capable of writing rather perceptive and intelligent essays, to also issue deeply silly ones like this. He seems here to be profoundly confused about the difference between means and ends. Diplomacy is merely the former, not the latter. So the end that Colin Powell was seeking was the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. He made a good faith effort to achieve this end through diplomacy. He failed, but there is no shame in this. When he realized that putative allies like France and Germany and enemies like Syria and China would not allow diplomacy to accomplish the goal, he decided to continue the politics by other means: war. His political vision remained unchanged; all he's done is adjust how it will be realized and it looks like he's headed for success, not failure. It would be asinine to resign. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 23, 2003 6:44 AM
You're right about Keller's drawing the entirely wrong conclusions (though he would certainly not be alone in this).
In fact, I think it would be justified to expect Powell to resign precisely for the opposite reason, viz., that his (successful) attempt to convince the Bush administration to delay the campaign in order to gain UN legitimacy was a total misreading of that organization and thus a dismal policy failure, which might ultimately, prove more disastrous to the US than which, one assumes, striking while the iron was hot, could have gone in quite a bit earlier (i.e., if this assumption is correct).
Mr. Meislin;
It's wierd for me to defend Powell, but I think that President Bush is deep down a strong believer in the UN and other multi-national organizations. As I think Mr. Judd has pointed out Bush seems to have thought that, like the people in a good Western, when the chips were down the UN would take its responsibilities seriously.
AOG:
I think I made the opposite point, that Will Kane would have no help from the townfolk.