Michael Ledeen, writing for The National Review, says those who’ve been quick to jump on Colin Powell for his in-fighting with the DOD (like protein wisdom’s own Victor Milkwhite, for instance!) have been fantastically duped.

Far from challenging the administration’s wishes, Ledeen argues, General Powell is merely acting like a convert to Foggy Bottom “realism.” In reality, all the world’s a stage — and on it, the U.S. is running a Good Cop-Bad Cop routine (with Powell and Rumsfeld as the stars), and it’s working marvelously:

W.’s strategy in the Great War is by now clear to anyone who cares to see: We’re going to attack terrorists and those who harbor or support them, which means we’re going after al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the various Islamic Jihads, and whatever new names these creeps invent for themselves. We’re not going to be gulled by Arafat. And, as soon as the guys in uniform get their act together, we’re going after Iran, Iraq, Syria, and anyone else who doesn’t shape up.

W. has said that from the first minute, and he’s said it whenever anyone asks.

His political/diplomatic problem is that, as he might put it, various folks wander off the ranch and start complaining. The Europeans complain that we’re being a bit too aggressive. The Arabs complain that we’re not catering to their tender sensitivities. The human-rights crowd complains that we’re being too mean to our prisoners. Defense lawyers complain that we’re not playing by San Francisco rules. If W. actually listened to all these complaints, he wouldn’t have time for anything else.

So what does he do? He dumps it all on the poor secretary of state by ordering Colin Powell to pretend that he’s in favor of everything the complainers say they want. You think we’re too aggressive? Go talk to Colin, he thinks so too. In fact, he doesn’t want to kill anyone, he even wants to extend the Great War Alliance to Iran and Syria. And he certainly doesn’t want to fight Iraq again, after his bad experience ten years ago. You think we don’t spend enough time holding the hands of the moderate Arabs? Just call up Colin, he loves holding hands with them, loves flying off to talk to them, loves discussing the finer points of Islamic lore with them. You think we’re being too mean to the al Qaeda bunch in Cuba? So does Colin. Talk to him.

It’s a marvelous variation on the old ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’ routine, and the latest improvement