Bush v. Powell
Colin Powell wants a war on poverty. The president must go further. Bin Laden is just the first step: the Taliban, Syria, and Iraq must each be dealt with in turn. It's no time to go wobbly.
by William Kristol
09/24/2001 12:00:00 AM
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William Kristol, editor
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Since his speech to Congress last Thursday, virtually every major political figure has gone out of his way to support the president. Except for his secretary of state. On the Sunday talk shows, Colin Powell revised or modified many of his boss's remarks.
The president devoted a good chunk of his speech to an indictment of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan: "In Afghanistan we see al Qaeda's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized . . . we condemn the Taliban regime." Further: "By aiding and abetting murder the Taliban regime is committing murder."
Bush then made six demands of the Taliban regime, demands "not open to negotiation or discussion." "The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate."
On Sunday, by contrast, the secretary of state drew a distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban, and more or less dismissed concerns about the Taliban: "With respect to the nature of the regime in Afghanistan, that is not uppermost in our minds right now. . . . I'm not going to say that it has become one of the objectives of the United States government to either remove or put in place a different regime." Powell expressed the hope that the Taliban would "come to its senses" and send Osama bin Laden out of the country. But after that, presumably, murderous bygones would be bygones.
What's going on here? Powell is desperate to focus our effort on bin Laden's al Qaeda.
Holding the Taliban responsible would raise questions about the role of governments in supporting terror, and might suggest a general policy of regime change where possible. Powell is hostile to any such policy, in part because such a policy might require a broader military engagement.
The president seemed to warn us Thursday night that war was all but inevitable. He had a message for our military: "Be ready." He said that he had "called the armed forces to alert, and there is a reason. The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud."
On Sunday the secretary of state was considerably less bellicose: "Well, let's not assume there will be a large-scale war. I don't know that we should even consider a large-scale war of the conventional sort."
One might say that Powell's remarks simply reflect the natural perspective of a secretary of state. But of course Powell had the same distaste for large-scale wars in 1990. Then, in the run-up to Desert Storm, Powell worried, in accord with his Powell Doctrine, that the American people were not united for war behind the first President Bush (as they were not). Powell did his best to persuade President Bush not to wage that war against Saddam.
Now the American people are united, but the Powell doctrine has gone global. Talk of war might fracture the global coalition that we have assembled. That coalition is key to this war against terror -- as long as it never becomes an actual war. Powell seems now to be as sensitive to global public opinion as he once was to what he took to be American public opinion.
Val:Y
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