The Unimportance of Being Colin Powell

Colin Powell has been reduced to little more than a figleaf used to cover the excesses of the most radically unilateralist administration since World War II. So why does he stay?

While he is unquestionably the most popular secretary of state in memory, Powell also has become the most powerless -- since hapless William Rogers was repeatedly humiliated by then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger during Richard Nixon's first term.

From the Middle East to North Korea, from pre-emption to population policy, and from the Kyoto Protocol to peacekeeping and the International Criminal Court, Powell has lost virtually every major policy battle to the most reckless, single-minded members of the administration. This gang of rightwing hawks has used the "war on terrorism" to push through an unabashedly imperial vision of foreign policy that gives even the military brass, not to mention Washington's closest allies, the heebee-jeebies.

Powell, the highly decorated army general and former chairman of the Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, is being humiliated by a clique of neo-conservatives and armchair militarists centered in the upper reaches of the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office. (These are men that Powell's loyal deputy, highly decorated Vietnam veteran Richard Armitage often refers to privately as "pissants," a reference in part to their history of draft evasion.) The president himself routinely pulls the rug out from under Powell on major policy issues, leaving him to defend the most egregious decisions of the administration -- decisions he has almost invariably argued against. The same president was quick to use his African-American secretary of state to deflect a reporter's question about his civil rights record earlier this month.

"Let's see," Bush responded. "There I was, sitting around the leader with [sic] - the table with foreign leaders, looking at Colin Powell and Condi Rice," he noted before calling for the next question.

Bush's insensitivity does not seem to faze the loyal Powell who simply "soldiers on" without complaint, as the New York Times put it in a lengthy, front-page story last Thursday.

Friends and advisers interviewed by the media offer three standard explanations for Powell's perseverance in the face of stupidity, if not adversity. One, he's stubborn and, like the army grunt he was, doesn't give up easily. Two, he is loyal to his commander-in-chief. And three, he wants to serve as an inspiring role model for African-Americans and other minorities.

Another favored explanation is that Powell fears Bush is likely to appoint someone far worse in his place. "[Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz would probably get the job," noted one highly placed source. "He thinks it's his patriotic duty to stay." Wolfowitz -- who as Pentagon's number three under then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney battled frequently with Powell over the conduct and aims of the Gulf War -- has long been the leading advocate for the ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, with or without the support of NATO or Washington's Arab allies.

Significantly, Wolfowitz and Cheney's current chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the chief authors of a 1992 'Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) which set out their vision for U.S. dominance in the post-Cold War era. The DPG laid out a scenario and strategy that eerily resembles Bush foreign policy since Sept. 11. "While the U.S. cannot become the world's 'policeman' by assuming responsibility for righting every wrong," the two men wrote, "we will retain preeminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends." They argued that Washington must retain the ability to deter "potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role" than the one permitted them by the U.S.