Colin Powell wrote an op-ed for the New York Times yesterday that sought to mark New Year’s Day by “review[ing] the achievements of the year gone by and mak[ing] resolutions for the year ahead.” Fair enough.
Powell’s mistakes had nothing to do with looking ahead; indeed, I can agree with nearly all of the foreign policy goals he set. The problem, as I saw it, is that Powell’s column was also intended as an overview of the Bush administration’s multiple foreign policy successes, but few if any of these alleged triumphs were as he described them to be.
* The Afghan people now have a constitution, a rapidly advancing market economy, and new hope as they look toward national elections.
Actually, all of this is wrong. First, the Afghan people do not have a constitution. Second, their economy is a ravaged, drug-dependent mess. And lastly, elections are no where on the horizon.
* [W]e are resolved to support the young democracies that have risen in Latin America
Right, the way the administration supported democracy in Venezuela?
* Afghanistan is no longer a devil’s playground for terrorists
Afghanistan’s foreign minister doesn’t seem quite as confident about this claim as Powell does.
* Iraq [is not] an incubator for weapons of mass murder that could have fallen into terrorists’ hands.
That’s an interesting twist on the old argument. Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, it didn’t have the capacity to sell WMDs to anyone, and it doesn’t appear to have had WMD programs, but — never fear — Iraq was an “incubator” for such weapons. I feel better already.
* [Al Queda’s] members are increasingly on the run, in hiding, in jail or dead.
Except for the wave of new bombings the terrorist network has unleashed.