Colin Powell was no knight in shining armour, but many will rue his departure from the State Department, writes Massoud Derhally A year ago I interviewed US Secretary of State Colin Powell for the Dubai based Arabian Business magazine. On the first leg of the journey I picked up his autobiography, My American Journey, in an attempt to gain some insight into the personality of the soldier, diplomat and statesman. I knew many people who had met Powell and no one had ever said anything completely negative about him before he joined the Bush administration in 2001. In diplomatic circles, and among the Arab world's intelligentsia, he was seen as a man of principle, a moderate. Though he was a soldier who had risen to the rank of four star general he seemed always to prefer diplomatic, rather than military, solutions to conflict. This was apparent in the Gulf War of 1990, and again in early 2003, when he was instrumental in persuading President Bush to go to the United Nations and make the case for war against Iraq. Yet in the last four years this fascinating man had found himself isolated in a veritable hornets' nest. He fought many battles against his neo-conservative colleagues and often lost. The Palestinians were brutally crushed by Israel while the peace process evaporated. Eventually he could do nothing to stop Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams from nailing the coffin shut and hijacking America's foreign policy. As the war locomotive moved into full gear in early 2003 Powell became the expendable points man, dispatched to the UN Security Council to hold up a vial of white powder which the Bush administration claimed somehow constituted proof of Iraq's stockpiles of anthrax. Such claims were proved false following the war in Iraq and the failure to uncover any of the WMD that were its supposed reason. Powell's performance that day will undoubtedly stain his record. To the Arab world it seemed that the moderate, the man who was above all rational, had fallen prey to the right wing dogma that infected the Bush camp. Powell should have known better. That US intelligence was wrong remains a threadbare excuse. This was the time, perhaps, when Powell should have resigned. The zealots in the Bush administration had somehow contrived to relegate him to the status of follower rather than the leader he was. The only shuttle diplomacy he performed in these years was to try and build up support for the war in Iraq. His hands had been effectively tied when it came to halting the Israel war machine. Yet during our meeting Powell appeared unwaveringly sincere about his desire to help the Arab world. It did not seem to be a show, nor could I detect the workings of a nuanced diplomacy. He spoke passionately about helping the Arab world help itself, and he did it in a way very different to listening to President Bush speak about the Arab world. "I believe the Arab world is a place of enormous potential, enormous promise," said Powell. "But it needs a lot of help and it needs to help itself. It needs to help itself by opening up its political system to greater participation to all segments of society, particularly women." Powell was right then and would be right now were he to repeat the statement. The evangelical zeal of President Bush was noticeably absent from Powell's speech. The Arab world is at a crossroads, true, and only reform, democracy and pluralism will move it forward. But imposing a system of government will not work in the Arab world. Orchestrating change with a stick -- something Bernard Lewis, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld argue is the only way to deal with Arab states -- was not the solution Powell chose. "We can promote democracy by showing that it works. We can't impose democracy by fiat," he said. "It is not for us to tell any Arab nation what kind of system it must have. They have to decide that. But I think we can make a pretty persuasive case that democracy is as applicable to an Arab nation as it is to any nation in the Western hemisphere or Europe. Why shouldn't it be? What is democracy? It's a concept that says let people decide how they wish to be governed. Let people determine what kind of systems they will have and who their leaders should be." Powell was a good listener. He understood Arab grievances and our conversation was a process of give and take. It was about dialogue rather than ultimatums. It was about persuasion. When asked what was the use of pushing a free trade area while violence in the Palestinian territories continued unabated Powell expressed his views in terms of the hope and good will that remains absent in the messages that come from other individuals in the Bush administration. "Nobody wants to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved more than I do. No Arab wants to see that resolved as much as I do. No Israeli wants to see it resolved as much as I do," Powell said. "That is our goal. But don't let it be an excuse. Don't let people say, 'well as long as there is this problem with the Israelis and Palestinians we can't do anything. We throw up our hands and march up and down and complain about that and complain about the Americans not solving that rather than dealing with the problems we have in our own country.' Don't use that conflict as an excuse for not doing what one should be doing in one's own country." Powell's exit marks the departure of Washington's last highly placed moderate. His absence will be sorely missed in Europe and the Middle East, and his qualities are likely to be viewed with nostalgia following his replacement by one of the administration's high-flying hawks.
