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A stronger role for Colin Powell

Thomas L. Friedman
Monday, November 11, 2002

WASHINGTON: This column is about the foreign policy fallout from the elections. But first, a story. I was recently interviewing a senior European diplomat when he began complaining about the Bush team's imbalanced Mideast policy, which involves telling the truth to Palestinians - that they need a new leader - but not telling the truth to Israel - that it needs to find a secure way to get out of the settlements. He became so passionate that I couldn't resist asking: "What does Colin Powell say when you tell him this?" The diplomat then did an imitation of Powell raising his eyebrows as if to say, "'You know what I believe, and you know I can't do anything about it with the crazies in this administration.'"

I've been thinking a lot about Colin Powell's eyebrows this week. Let's be blunt: the Democratic Party as a force for shaping U.S. foreign policy is out of business, until that party undergoes regime change. That's not healthy. You can't have a sound foreign policy without an intelligent domestic opposition keeping people honest.

With the Democrats out of business, the real opposition party on foreign policy will now be the "De Facto Democrats" - Colin Powell, John McCain and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair of Britain. They are the only voices that, if raised in opposition to any Bush foreign policy initiative, could restrain the president and sway the public.

What the last election showed us is what a deep trauma of vulnerability Sept. 11 etched on the American psyche. "While the Democrats failed to articulate a broad range of policy differences with President Bush," said David Makovsky of the Washington Institute, "their key failure was their inability to persuade Americans - in their guts - that they were prepared to deal with the world as it really is now." That is a world full of terrorists and rogue regimes dedicated to the destruction of the United States.

Where the Bush hard-liners are out of step is that many people don't believe these guys really want to invest in making the world a different place, or that they have any imagination or inspiration to do so. The reason the De Facto Democrats are so important, and have a future, is that people trust that they see the world as it is - but also aspire to make it a better place.

Powell and Blair pushed Bush to go through the United Nations before invading Iraq. The hard-liners were angry about that because they fear the inspectors won't find anything and then Iraq would be off the hook. Cool it. Saddam is as likely to fully comply with the UN as Mike Tyson is to embrace anger management. By framing the issue in the United Nations, Bush ensured much greater public support for any war. It was good advice by the De Facto Democrats. More will be needed.

Consider the Predator drone that last week fired a rocket to wipe out a key Al Qaeda cell in Yemen. Sometimes that's the only way justice gets done. What you have today is the Arab street and the Arab basement. Predators are necessary for wiping out the hard-core terrorists who have left the street and gone into the basement, where they are beyond diplomacy and committed to violence. But if you don't try to seal the door between the street and the basement - with diplomacy - what happens is that as soon as you kill four guys in the basement, four more come down from the street and take their place.

Powell has always understood, better than the Bush hard-liners, that Predators are necessary, but not sufficient. You don't have to cater to the Arab street, but if you don't listen to their legitimate aspirations, you end up refilling the basements with more dangerous characters. If the only outstretched American hand the world sees is the Predator drone, the United States is in trouble.

This is where the real fight in America is going to be: between those who just want to deal with the world as it is, and those who want to deal with the world as it is - but also invest in changing it. Until Democrats convince the public that they know how the world really is, America will have to rely on De Facto Democrats to fight this fight.

But that means Powell must step it up. If he and his allies are going to prevail, they are going to have to raise more than just their eyebrows.

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