'Powell tried to talk Bush out of war'... a good man in hiding?

During the nineties Colin Powell always stood tall as the voice of reason and reality in the Middle East.

This week Colin Powell told the Aspen Ideas Festival that he had 'tried to avoid this war' and had spent 2.5 hrs trying to persuade George Bush not to invade Iraq. I'm sure he is selling himself short.... I think we can assume with absolute certainty that Powell invested a lot more than 2.5hrs trying to avert the Iraq fiasco.

I can't help feeling that Powell is man of great wisdom and insight with a deep understanding of Middle East politics... I also can't help feeling that he caved in at a critcal period in order to secure his political future. The man with a firm grasp of war realities seems to have been a Bush poodle for the last four years. Only now are we seeing the voice of reason emerge again.

His observation that the 'Sunnis are struggling for power and survival and it's going to be resolved by a test of arms. It's going to be very ugly' is delivered from practical experience; however when the history books are written, will it be OK that a man with so much potential to positively influence events simply became an observer???