25 October 2021
The US lost a great military mind and most capable diplomat, who had personal credibility and standing that was unheralded for the offices he held on his long record of public service, whether as NSA, as Chairman JCS, as America’s Diplomat in Chief as Secretary of State, or even as a retired commentator on strategic or military affairs. One always expected Powell to take a call that would be most befitting to the honour code that he held aloft for all his life! A General, A Diplomat and along the way a well respected Scholar!
While many consider his UN Statement that was based on British Intelligence about WMDs with the Saddam Regime in Iraq to be the blight of his entire career as a public persona, an Indic perspective is sorely missing. One can easily relate what Powell did as a spokesperson for his country at the UNGA, corralling the Iraqi regime with his briefing, to bring about a broader coalition of understanding and acceptance for the war that was to follow. Eventually, America was left standing with just her oldest ally and colonial ancestor- The United Kingdom in pursuit of her wild goose chase of Saddam Hussein and the toppling of his regime, which included a charade of ‘cards’ of most wanted and finally ended with the orchestrated judicial execution of the person who history will judge far more kindly than how Iraqis themselves are likely to now. Strategically, America opened up the Persian Gulf to the Pandora, whose consequences she struggled to cope with in the aftermath of her toppling Saddam in Iraq. Today the Shia faction in Iraqi society has an upper hand, the Kurds in Iraq are largely an autonomous part, and while the overt threat from ISIS or ISIL has abated, the serious damage that radicalisation brought into otherwise sedate and secular Iraqi society is yet to be repaired by her polity. An unstable Iraq is fertile ground for a contest between the Saudi Sunni arc and the Iranian Shia arc, a competition of tectonic proportions in the Middle East that has ramifications extending from Gaza to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
General Powell had made a signal contribution through his doctrine, which was a refinement of the general theory of war that he had assisted his then boss Secretary of Defence Casper Weinberger. It emerged directly from his own experiences around the Vietnam war and a larger debate after Korea and Nam which went around the US Political Establishment about war policy- Never Again Vs Limited War, which were to incorporate six tests of necessary conditions for war outlined by Secretary Weinberger in his 1984 Speech titled ‘The Uses of Military Power’! The gist of the speech as a series of conditions for US military deployment overseas was a clear six points: 1. Never commit unless vital to national interest or that of allies. 2. Deploy wholeheartedly with clear intention of winning. 3. Deploy with clearly stated political and military objectives upfront. 4. National Interests will dictate the relationship between objectives and forces deployed to ensure victory. 5. Deployment only with reasonable assurance of popular support of American voters and their elected representatives in Congress. 6. Deployment as a commitment of US forces should be a last resort!
What Powell added later to these six were what was his personal character and personality trait based objectives. Being an immigrant’s son, of African American ( through Caribbean route) and growing up in the Bronx, were the requirement of exhausting all non violent options before war, and to obtain genuine broad international support.
For those familiar with Indic cultural heritage of Itihasa Purana, the Powell Doctrine could well have been the speech made by Lord Krishna as he convinced Draupadi of why he needed to sue for peace one last time in the Kuru Assembly before the Pandavas deployed forces at Kurukshetra for the Great War that loomed over them. Krishna was at pains to explain to the distraught Draupadi that it was not weakness or meekness that made even mighty Bhima who had vowed to tear open the breast of Dushashana and the thigh of Duryodhana in the Great War whenever it took place, to seek to offer a last chance to their cousins. It was Dharma. So when the Pandava forces assembled at Kurukshetra, the same Krishna who had argued for peace earlier, placed an entire philosophical construct by reading from Upanishads and exhorting Arjuna to wage war! An Arjuna who was struck by how he would need to slay his grand sire, his teacher, his brothers, ( at that time he didn’t know of Karna’s truth as eldest of the Pandavas, even elder to Yudhisthira) and the greatest bowman of the Itihasas actually cast off his armour and quivers, his mighty Gandiva slipping from his grip, downcast with the mere contemplation of the impending bloodshed!
Similarly, when General Powell rose to speak at the UNGA, he was doing the same task as Yudhisthira’s, while confirming to Drona the death of Ashwaththama. Of course, like the WMDs of Iraq the true Ashwaththama as son of Drona was very much alive, in one corner of the battle, surrounded by Pandava forces, while an elephant by that name was slain and used as a cover for the Speaker of Truth to unleash a lie! Once more, the larger objective of the epoch trumped the momentary indiscretion, just as the larger objective of regime change in Iraq, which Powell could not muster in the first Gulf War now stood tantalisingly within reach, when General Powell peppered his remarks with a presentation about WMDs! Powell was seeking to be true to his own doctrine, just as Yudhisthira was seeking to be true to his own Dharma as a Pandava and as a wronged King seeking to overturn the miscarriage of his fortune through the device of subterfuge!
It is not at all novel, to think of the Mahabharata as a contextual text for something that an American soldier and statesman sought to be known and live by. There is no indication anywhere in General Powell’s writing or his words of such a connection, yet the striking similarity between the passages of the Mahabharata and the choices of America’s first African origin /black soldier, thinker, statesman, as NSA, as Chair of JCS, as Secretary of State, who chose to not run for President, shows us the larger nature of truth and how seekers will find its harbour as they navigate their life choices, inevitably!
So while contemporary scholars and opinion makers feel that General Colin Powell was diminished by his UNGA speech on WMDs in Iraq, taken in the context of Mahabharata and how even today, Yudhisthira’s name is taken ahead of Raja Harishchandra as a paragon of virtue and Speaker of Truth, particularly when the context of Yugas and Circumstances is brought to bear, in the classical nuanced understanding that Sanatana Dharma offers, General Powell stands UN diminished by that one episode. He stands tall as a great visionary and military leader, as a soldier statesman, and above all an inspiration for underdogs across continents and societies!
It is an entirely different matter that soon after his tenure as Secretary of State, American Power used his doctrine only when convenient, discarding the cannon when it did not suit them. This served American interests poorly as can be seen from the withdrawal in Afghanistan, after two decades of fighting a war that should have ended after the overthrow of the Taliban itself, one that never would have stretched to see their return as facilitated turning the original effort into a facile victory for American military power! Today, one hopes that his doctrine determines US interventions in Asia where conflict like situation has stirred in the aftermath of Rise of China and the dawn of a Climate of Strategic Uncertainty! That would be a befitting tribute to his legacy!
indiarubberman.com 