When your only tool is a hammer...

Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, former chair of the Defense Policy Board, and leading neo-conservative thinker advising the Bush administration had this to say last night on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer regarding Colin Powell's departure:

"It was his fate to be the nation's top diplomat at a time when some of the urgent problems we faced could not be dealt with by diplomatic means."

Let's see, what were some of those urgent problems?

Iraq? No, it turns out they had no weapons of mass destruction and that sanctions had been effective in containing Saddam.

Iran? Well, it seems the approach was to ignore the real nuclear program Iran has been working on for the last four years, which has only been ramped up since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

North Korea? See the comments on Iran directly above.

Darfur? Aha! THERE'S a place where there's been all talk and no action. So this is what Perle's referring to...

So what does this mean for the presumptive Powell replacement, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and her role for the next four years? Maybe she should start scheduling her tee times now.

Speaking of Dr. Rice, back before she was part of the Bush administration, she was, among other things, a board member of a DC international security think tank, the Henry L. Stimson Center, whose motto is "Taking pragmatic steps toward ideal objectives." Curiously, they seem a bit more nuanced than most of the Bush administration's foreign policies. Maybe while Dr. Rice is filling her dance card, she can ponder other options for US international security, should she ever have the opportunity to present them.