Powell makes the case for Bush

Tom Plate, Founder, Asia Pacific Media Network, Davos, Switzerland

It would take an exceptionally bad policy to transform a good guy into a bad guy. But until his star turn Sunday (Jan. 26) to defend U.S. policy toward Iraq before a largely skeptical audience, that was the prospect facing the image of Colin Powell, America's widely respected but embattled secretary of State.

The intellectual tenor of the annual retreat of the World Economic Forum in this remote snow-bound village had been set Thursday (Jan. 23) by the plenary speech of Mahathir Mohamad. This enduring Southeast Asian leader -- secularist prime minister of multi-ethnic but largely Muslim Malaysia since 1981 -- has been advocating a cautious line toward Iraq and others suspected of harboring terrorists ever since 9/11.

His views derive from decades of building a modern Malaysia amid the very region that has spawned many religious fundamentalist schools, cells and alleged terrorists. His own remarkably stable career at the top of Malaysia's roiling politics renders his judgment more venerable than vindictive. He has seen the enemy -- Islamic radicalism -- up close and personal. In power he has hardly put down the stick, but he realizes that the stick is often more efficacious in reserve than in use.

Mahathir reflected the sentiment of some (though perhaps not the majority) of the CEOs here from around the world, many of the assembled religious leaders, all of the heads of the leading non- governmental institutions and a few of the political leaders willing to go on the record.

The PM, in a few months stepping down to make way for his chosen successor, declared: "The forces against the axis of evil are not going to win because the target is wrong. All that can happen if they are defeated is to create more anger and a call for more revenge and retaliation by the people who are incensed by the injustice (of modernization and globalization) they believe they are experiencing."

The knock against Mahathir in the West is that he sometimes seems anti-American, if not anti-Semitic. But in his waning days of power, he is finally getting his due. Under his leadership, Malaysia has come a long way in escaping the worst excesses of Islam: "The only solution is through compromise. Trust must be built. Out-terrorizing the terrorists will not work. But removing the causes of terrorism will."

And the knock against Powell, whose speech came three days later, is that he has morphed, mortifyingly, into the kinder, gentler face of what has become a mean, hawkish administration. But Powell, a former soldier who has witnessed more military combat than probably anyone in the large WEF congress hall, now seems resigned to war's prospect renewed. "Talking with evil will not work," he said, as if in rebuke to Mahathir. "You need hard (military) power."

In truth, Powell made the case for his boss, President George W. Bush, better than Bush has so far himself. Baghdad, under Saddam Hussein, is a human-rights abomination, violates U.N. Security Council resolutions with impunity, stockpiles weapons of mass destruction and is a threat to its neighbors. Someone must do something, before this dictator does something terrible to them or us.

Echoing this year's WEF theme of "building trust," Powell said: "Today, not a single nation trusts Saddam, and those who know him best trust him least." His government, he claimed, "has clear ties to terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda ... We need to deal with this problem once and for all."

Hours before, Powell, making the rounds in private meetings, found out that it was not just the epithet- and snowball-hurling street demonstrators outside the hall who had a lowering regard for the United States, but many among the well-heeled multimillionaires inside the heated halls.

"Can America be trusted to use its power wisely?" he asked in his speech, reflecting those doubts. "I believe," he answered, referring to the many U.S. efforts over the decades to rebuild societies devastated by war, "that the U.S. has earned that trust."

Until Powell's skillful star turn, the gathering chorus of negativity about America -- indeed, an emerging anti-Americanism -- had become so strong that it was almost possible to feel a measure of sympathy for the boss. Bush seems increasingly strident and thus isolated in world opinion.

Until Powell's pitch, in fact, the consensus here had been that America had best change course, stand down and reschedule its righteous crusade against Saddam until another day. But as the secretary of State persuaded many in the hall that such was not to be, the consensus became this: Since the United States, one way or the other, is going to go after Saddam, let's get on with it, and hope to get it over quickly.

This was the value of having Powell, clearly a good guy, defend what many had come to believe was a bad policy. This may be a classic case of a good secretary of state stuck with a bad presidential policy.