A moderate voice leaves the world stage
WASHINGTON -- The impending departure of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, with the mutual consent of President Bush, signals the final fadeout of the leading moderate voice on the Bush administration's foreign policy team.
The news that Powell would leave when a successor is confirmed -- perhaps in January -- came as Powell appeared poised to reengage with the Mideast peace process after the death of Yasser Arafat, to nudge the administration toward greater engagement with North Korea, and work to repair US relations with Europe.
All three priorities, which Powell pursued despite the skepticism of neoconservatives who dominate the administration's foreign-policy thinking, now face a period of uncertainty.
The news of Powell's departure prompted immediate expressions of regret from those who share his perspective around the world.
''It's a big loss for me personally, it's a big loss for the state of Israel, and it's a big loss for the peace in the Middle East," said Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom, standing with Powell yesterday outside the State Department.
Powell spent the last four years locked in interagency battles with the Defense Department, the Vice President's office, and the National Security Council, all of which elevated the goal of transforming the world through democracy -- sometimes achieved through regime change and military force -- above the more pragmatic objectives favored by the State Department.
''His legacy outside will be the getting the short end of the stick, having been outflanked frankly by a more hard-line agenda," said Patrick Cronin, a former USAID assistant administrator under Powell. ''Powell represented the internationalists' and moderates' viewpoint within the Bush administration, and now the question becomes, what is the balance of political power in Bush's Cabinet? Will it be more conservative, less conservative, or the same?"
Even as Bush campaigned for reelection on a promise to promote freedom around the world, many self-described foreign-policy ''realists" in the United States and abroad hoped Powell would stay in office and perhaps even gain influence in a second Bush term.
The White House would not comment on a Powell successor, but three State Department officials said they believed their new boss would be national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, a Cold War specialist who has generally sided with the neoconservatives in the Defense Department on Iraq and other major foreign-policy issues.
Still, the State Department officials predicted more continuity than change if Rice replaces Powell, since the two talk daily on various foreign policy issues, and since Rice's office at the White House already controls so many key areas of US foreign policy.
But Rice is considered less experienced and more hawkish than Powell, a former career soldier who developed a reputation of a reluctant warrior during his 40 year of service, which included two combat tours in Vietnam and stints as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and national security adviser.
Few Bush administration officials -- including Rice -- have shown the personal devotion to shepherding peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Powell did during his first year in office, shuttling between Arafat's compound and the offices of Israeli officials in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to broker a deal.
Powell was instrumental in persuading Bush to ''stick his neck out" and endorse the vision of a Palestinian state, one State Department official said, but later grew disillusioned when Arafat proved unable to stop a run of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Powell eventually lost much of the responsibility for the Mideast peace process to Rice's National Security Council -- which has been less interested in engaging Palestinians -- but was poised to return to the difficult task. As news of his resignation spread yesterday, Powell was in the midst of plans to visit Palestinian leaders in Ramallah next week and determine what kind of opportunities exist for moving peace forward in the aftermath of Arafat's death.
Yesterday, Powell said his departure would not dim the prospects for peace and democracy in a new Palestinian state and said he would work up until he leaves on an ambitious agenda that includes trying to stabilize Iraq.
''My departure does not make anything inevitable," he said. ''We're going to keep moving forward. It's the president's policies that are being pursued and implemented, not Colin Powell's."
Powell's close friend and deputy, Richard Armitage, is also expected to leave, and one person often mentioned to succeed him is John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, who is known for his hard-line stance on Iran and North Korea.
While Powell struggled over the last few years to soften the US position on North Korea and keep the door of diplomacy open, Bolton and others in the Bush administration advocated pursuing a policy of isolating and punishing the erratic regime for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
''Regime change is Bolton's preferred option for North Korea," said one State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ''That's no secret. But it is too soon to tell, if [Rice] is going to be Powell's replacement, what that means for North Korea or anywhere else."
Powell broke the news to his senior staff yesterday at the 8:30 meeting in a matter-of-fact way, ending nearly a year of speculation about his future.
Powell was almost universally liked at the State Department for reversing budget cuts, updating the computer system, and calling even the lowest-level employee to participate in meetings in his office, if that employee was a specialist on the issue at hand. But Powell's effectiveness at influencing administration policy never matched his managerial skills.
Ultimately, many inside and outside the department said yesterday, Powell will be remembered more for the public battles he lost, like his unheeded warnings about the risks of intervention in Iraq and a stalled Mideast peace process, than his less publicized victories. His success in persuading Bush to press on with six-nation talks aimed at resolving North Korea's nuclear ambitions won him praise throughout the diplomatic world, though the talks have yet to bear any fruit.
Above all, officials said, history will note that it was Powell who argued at the United Nations in 2003 that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction in what is now known as a deeply flawed presentation.
Powell has expressed disappointment that the evidence he used was inaccurate.
Yesterday, he looked pained and subdued as he announced his departure at a press briefing. At once the most popular figure on Bush's foreign policy team and the one who left the faintest footprint on key decisions, Powell offered only passing praise for a president who frequently disregarded his advice, and instead trumpeted the legion of foreign service officers under him.
''The greatest pleasure comes from working with like-minded people in all the organizations I've been a part of, serving the nation," he said, adding ''And what am I going to do next? Well, I don't know." 