THIS SEEMS RIGHT TO ME:

Powell’s fury and determination is not because he has doubts about the United Nations, but because he believes in it. He wants the body to work. He’s not naive enough to believe that a body that can place Libya as the chair of a human rights commission has a moral center. And he’s not stupid enough to hold that power-politics don’t play a critical role in making the U.N. effective. But he does believe that the U.N. is the worst way of organizing international relations – except for all the others. He sees a real value in having world affairs channeled through a genuinely international prism. And he sees universal values – peace, human rights, disarmament, the prevention of genocide – as best enforced through collective rather than unilateral endeavors.

And that’s why Powell is now pro-war.

I don’t think that this French proposal is going to be enough. . . .