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Secretary of State Colin Powell admits to being perplexed about the recurring reports that he is planning to quit his job. "What's up with these resignation stories?" he asked reporters on July 25. "You insist on writing this story every two weeks."
He has that right. The latest Powell-to-quit story was published Aug. 31 on Time magazine's Web site. It claimed Powell would leave at the end of Bush's current term -- unless an imminent Palestinian peace settlement required a short extension of his service. Other reports have Powell cleaning out his desk after the November midterm elections. Administration officials and Powell himself firmly deny that he has ever contemplated resignation.
I think my colleagues in the media are barking up the wrong tree. The real question to ask is not "will he go?" It's "should he resign?" And at the risk of sounding heretical in pro-Powell Washington, the time well may have come for Colin Powell to go.
RESPECT, NOT RESULTS. Sure, the Secretary of State has the highest job-approval ratings in the entire Bush Administration: 75% positive and only 19% negative, according to the latest Harris Poll. What's more, he commands greater international respect among heads of state and diplomats than any other figure in the U.S. government.
The problem for Powell is that the respect doesn't translate into results. For much of his tenure in Foggy Bottom, the nation's top diplomat, a pragmatic multilateralist, has been butting heads with conservatives in the White House and the Pentagon. As often as not, he loses the internal battles. And even when he wins, he bears the scars of combat behind closed doors. His Administration colleagues may respect him, but they don't necessarily heed his advice.
How bad are things for Powell? When he represented the U.S. at the just-concluded Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, he was heckled and jeered by some of the left-wing delegates in attendance.
KOREAN SPLIT. Boos from the left are no reason to quit his job. More to the point, Powell, a consensus builder, seems to be out of step with the Bush White House's overwhelmingly unilateralist foreign policy team.
Examples of Powell's differences abound. Early in the Bush Presidency, Powell favored a thaw in relations with North Korea that picked up where the Clinton Administration left off. That meant engagement and indirect communication. But the President at first sided with Cold War hawks and embarrassed South Korea's President during a visit to Washington.
Bush then labeled North Korea a member of the "axis of evil." Only Powell's persistence prevented a complete rupture in the peninsular peace overtures of recent years.
IRAQ'S THE RUB. Powell also was the "dove" in Administration discussions over whether to unilaterally withdraw from the antiballistic missile treaty negotiated with the Soviet Union. The Secretary of State cautioned against precipitous action and counseled in favor of consultation with Russian officials. In the end, Bush discussed the matter with President Vladimir Putin, but his mind was made up in advance -- and the U.S. pulled out of the treaty.
Another rough spot for Powell has been the Middle East. He has been far more aggressive than some Administration colleagues in trying to achieve progress toward a Palestinian state. He seems far less eager than the President to embrace Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and an all-out war against Palestinian terrorists. In fact, some wags have joked about the emergence of "Secretary of State Karl Rove," a reference to the President's top political adviser, who would like to improve the Republican Party's standing among Jewish voters.
But the most serious area of conflict is Iraq. Since his tenure's beginning, Powell has been an advocate of "smart sanctions." That means a change from the failed U.N. efforts to crack down on Saddam Hussein, which too often have led to hunger among the Iraqi people while allowing the dictator's cronies to profit. The State Dept. would like to see a new set of sanctions that has fewer loopholes but broad international support.
HOW TO GET THERE. Trouble is, powerful Administration figures including Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld think that the time for sanctions and weapons inspections is past. They want preemptive action (as in an invasion), even if that means angering allies such as Germany, France, and Russia. Powell says inspections should be the diplomatic weapon of first resort. Cheney scoffs at the idea.
There's no internal disagreement about the end result of U.S. Iraq policy: It's the overthrow of Saddam's regime. The debate is over how to get there. "I think there are a lot of differences," Powell told reporters traveling with him to Johannesburg on Sept. 3. "Some are real, some are perceived, some are overhyped."
Powell, a retired general and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a good soldier. In the end, he'll go along with his Commander-in-Chief's decision, whether he agrees with it or not. That has been Powell's modus operandi his entire career, whether he worked for Presidents Reagan, Clinton, or the two Bushes. Friends say his mission is to present his point of view and push the debate as far as he can in that direction.
VANCE'S WAY? Such loyalty is admirable. And President Bush is a great believer in loyalty. But if Powell disagrees so often with his boss and other members of the Cabinet over policy and cannot prevail, he should consider resignation as a matter of principle. The last Secretary of State to do that was Cyrus Vance, who quit Jimmy Carter's Cabinet in a fundamental disagreement over the botched 1980 hostage-rescue mission in Iran.
This is a very delicate matter. Even if Powell strongly disagrees with the Bush invasion plan for Iraq, it's inconceivable that he would quit while American soldiers were in harm's way. It's more realistic to expect him to wait until the mission is accomplished. At that point, he should consider principle and contemplate the future.
Despite the media Establishment's speculation, Powell has no aspiration to run for elected office that I can see. When he leaves public service, the Virginia resident will likely return to the lucrative land of the private sector. Powell insists he has never thought of following in the footsteps of Cyrus Vance. But considering the rough ride he has had for the past two years, it might be time to at least start contemplating the resignation option.
Dunham is a White House correspondent for BusinessWeek's Washington bureau. Follow his views every Monday in Washington Watch, only on BusinessWeek Online Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
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