Calpundit theorizes that Colin Powell has threatened to resign if the US goes to war without a UN resolution - and that this threat is what's kept us from going in up to now. I think this is highly unlikely. A couple of months back, Powell might have been our first best hope of avoiding a war, but something changed in him. In recent week he's closed ranks with the rest of the Bush people, and now it's to the point where they're using him to project that multilateralist image, but he's also the one ratcheting up the warlike rhetoric at the UNSC.
People have been saying a lot of things today about Bush's 30-second news conference, the motivations behind the timing, etc. What interested me about it was that Powell came along, just to stand there, mute, next to his president. They're spending his credibility hand over fist... and they couldn't do it without his blessing.
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