The Australian : Neo-con prophet unbowed

Neo-con prophet unbowed

Greg Sheridan | foreign editor | August 18, 2007

PAUL Wolfowitz is a lightning rod for much of the hostility from those legions of people who hate the Bush administration. The arch neo-conservative, one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq, the man most associated with the decisive use of US power, he talks most passionately of development in Africa. This reflects his last big job, president of the World Bank.

He was forced out of this job for allegedly organising an over-generous promotion out of the bank for his partner. It was an absurd charge and the bank ultimately decided he had behaved ethically. Nonetheless there was a kind of frenzy of hostility to Wolfowitz, really from the day he started at the bank.

There is often a sheer irrationality in the hostility directed at Wolfowitz, the highest profile neo-con of all.

In Melbourne this week for the annual Australian American Leadership Dialogue, Wolfowitz took time out for his most extensive interview since he left the World Bank.

He looks well and he seems to have absorbed all the strife that befell him. He agrees what happened to him was an injustice, but says: "I don't feel particularly bitter or resentful, I manage to get on with other things. I've developed some of the feeling for Africa that I've long had for Indonesia. It would be exciting to be able to help."

Certainly Wolfowitz is passionate about Africa. By chance we are sitting in exactly the same seats as he and the singer Bono occupied last November, when Wolfowitz was head of the World Bank and Bono was pursuing his crusade against African poverty.

Wolfowitz is proud of his achievements in his two years as World Bank president, and this sentiment is focused on Africa.

"I think I got a lot done in two years, to be honest," he says. "I think we certainly did establish Africa as the first priority for the bank, whereas many Africans have told me that they felt it was lip service in the past.

"There was also the emphasis on governance, and more and more Africans see that good governance is a key to economic success. This notion that somehow the emphasis on governance got in the way of us providing money is also nonsense. We did record levels of lending in both years."

Wolfowitz also cites getting the bank back into infrastructure as important. But while the bank must be involved with countries at various levels of development, Wolfowitz is clear that it is the way it responds to the needs of the very poorest countries that is the basis by which it should be judged.

And indeed he has a fascinating story to tell about Africa, about how there is more hope there than you might imagine.

Did you know, for example, that the economies of about 15 African countries have been growing at 4 per cent a year or more for the past 10 years? That Rwanda, which suffered a terrible genocide 13 years ago, has grown at 7per cent for the past 10 years; that Mozambique, which emerged 12 years ago from a gruesome civil war, has been growing at 8per cent for 10 years?

"People say, yeah that's easy off a small base. I wouldn't agree with that. It's never easy." Wolfowitz acknowledges this sort of growth is not yet evident in Africa's big countries: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo. But he believes if middle-sized African countries such as Tanzania moved from 4 per cent growth to an Asian style 7 per cent or 8 per cent, it could have a powerful demonstration effect.

"Just like Taiwan and Singapore demonstrated for China, it's possible, you're not constrained by your history or culture or geography from being successful."

Wolfowitz was inspired by Sierra Leone electing an economic reformer as Africa's first female president.

But wait a minute, I hear you ask, what's all this stuff about Africa and poverty and development and inspiration from so renowned a warmonger as Wolfowitz?

The Western press, especially the Australian press, has indulged an absurd caricature of the neo-conservatives. Wolfowitz was always concerned with human rights. Unusually for a Republican, he strongly supported Bill Clinton's humanitarian military interventions in the Balkans in the 1990s.

One life-changing experience came for him in the mid-1980s, when he was assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific. In that role he was intimately involved in the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos and the restoration of democracy in The Philippines in 1986. The next year he was involved as a US policy-maker in a democratic transition in South Korea. The values that he pursued in the US State Department, in the Pentagon, where he was deputy defence secretary in the first George W. Bush administration, and in the World Bank were the same values and relate to human dignity, human freedom and human development.

Of his successor at the World Bank, Bob Zoellick, Wolfowitz says: "I think he knows what he wants to do and I think he'll do a good job." He notes that both he and Zoellick have been active participants in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. He draws a substantial, broader lesson from this seeming coincidence: "It's nice to be in the club of Americans who recognise the contribution that Australia makes. I also think it overlaps with those people who understand how important this part of the world is."

Wolfowitz first got involved with Australia in 1982, when he became assistant secretary of state. "The issues of the time were Cold War issues. The whole landscape has changed dramatically, but it's changed in a way that makes your part of the world more important." He nominates the shared values of the US and Australia as the enduring foundation of the relationship.

"In 1983 the centre of US foreign policy attention, logically enough, was Europe and the confrontation with the Soviet Union. I think Australia is to be applauded for understanding that those far-away issues affected Australia and it had a role to play. Now it's much more about maintaining stability in the Asia-Pacific region and supporting China's emergence as a responsible major power, which I think will happen but is not something you can take for granted.

"Now, on top of it all, is something I don't think anyone fully appreciated before 9/11: the serious challenge in effect to the future of 1.2billion Muslims. I think all of that means there's even more work for Australia and the US to do together."

But of course Wolfowitz's place in history will depend heavily on how Iraq finally plays out. Where does he think it will go from here?

"The best prospect would be some kind of stability emerging, which means a government which can first of all maintain security. It's a bit silly to pick on this Government, given all of us would find it challenging when you have the number of people in your midst determined to blow themselves up to kill other people. It's quite horrendous.

"The most important thing is that it (Iraq) be able to stand on its own feet in dealing with its problems, because obviously the patience of the American people is not infinite. But I do think the stakes are larger than just Iraq.

"Everyone agrees it would be good to get American troops out of Iraq but the challenge is not to leave something behind which is much worse and comes back to bite us.

"It's not a perfect analogy but it's now recognised we won a proxy victory against the Soviets in Afghanistan and then the country went to hell in such a way that it created the wherewithal for 9/11.

"Plus I really do believe if things evolve the right way there are millions of Iraqis who would welcome a more moderate and stable Middle East, and would be allies in promoting it. So the stakes are very large."

Certainly Wolfowitz does not resile from the decision the US took - with Australian support - to depose Saddam Hussein: "I think the world is much better off without Saddam Hussein. Does that mean everything was done perfectly? By no means.

"I think it is worth remembering January 2005. When Iraqis got the chance to vote for the first time, and the enemy threatened death to those who voted, and some said the indelible ink on the thumb may be mark of death, 9.5million Iraqis voted. That said something important. It's an important asset to build on. I think the vote itself tells us something about what the great majority of Iraqis would like to see."

And what will history's judgment be of the Bush administration?

"I think there's no question the President acted with great resolve and real boldness in recognising after September 11 we're in a very different kind of world. I remember first hearing (former defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld shortly after September 11 saying this would be a long struggle and he likened it to the Cold War. I thought maybe that was overstating the problem, but it didn't take me long to realise that if anything it was understating the problem.

"It extends far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. It extends deep into various Western societies. It really is a struggle for the heart of Islam, if you like. It's going to affect us all. If you look at where history would have judged the Truman administration at its end and where we judge it now, there is a fair difference.

"I really believe the people we are confronting are so inhuman and so brutal and so wrong that, as in the Cold War, we should, because of the strength of free societies, come out on top. But in the short term, the enemy is more tough-minded and stronger willed.

"One of the attributes of a free society is that once the pressure is off, the people like living in peace and enjoying life, and that's a very good thing. But sometimes the enemy confuses that with weakness."

Whatever else people say of Wolfowitz, they rarely accuse him of weakness.