Imagine course of history had Powell become US president

FOR all the posthumous commentary on US General Colin Powell, he remained something of an enigma to the world.

First and foremost, Powell was, in the classic US tradition, a soldier politician.

He was not one of those officers who gravitated to politics after their military service, but one who floated between the executive and military arms of the US administration.

Winston Churchill was one who envisaged a spectacular military career enhancing his genetic political aspirations. He served both as a military officer and correspondent in significant campaigns, the later deliberately intended to raise his public profile.

Although half American by birth, Churchill was committed to a political career in the UK.

Yet he battled to survive the electoral battlefield, changing both electorates and parties as he aspired to rise to cabinet rank.

America’s different cabinet model allows individuals outside its bicameral parliament to hold cabinet rank at the whim of the president.

US cabinet secretaries have the flexibility to select their senior advisory staff.

The US electoral system also allows voters to register their party affiliation.

An internship in a

Washington political office doesn’t always transpire as the appointee dreams it might, but Powell was a 35-year-old Vietnam veteran with an MBA when he was awarded a White House fellowship under President Nixon in 1972-73.

Powell then attended the National War College, a sure step to further promotion to the highest ranks of the US military.

He rotated between senior commands and political appointments, as senior military assistant to Secretary of Defence Caspar

Weinberger, then national security adviser as a four-star general.

When he was appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff aged 52 in 1993, he was the youngest to hold this position, the first African American and first who had been commissioned through the second-stream Reserve Officers Training Corps.

Since World War II only Dwight Eisenhower and Alexander Haig had reached four-star rank without a divisional command.

Powell oversaw the US military crises in Panama, Bosnia, Iraq and Somalia when in reality he argued as a voice of reason.

Powell’s ambitions stalled when he was challenged over evidence he gave to the UN that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and were a reason to declare war.

For multiple reasons he declined to run for president, despite every indication he could have won.

Imagine how subsequent events may have transpired if he had decided to run and achieve the US’S highest office.