Paul Dandes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943 in New York, USA) is a United States statesman who served as Under Secretary of Defense (2001-2005) in the George W. Bush administration. From 2005 to 2007, he was president of the World Bank.
Paul Wolfowitz: biography
Wolfowitz’s father, an immigrant from Poland whose family died during the Holocaust, taught mathematics at Cornell University in Ithaca, where Paul received his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1965. As a young man, he became interested in history and politics, and in 1963 went to Washington to take part in a civil rights march. Wolfowitz later studied political science at the University of Chicago (graduated in 1972), where Leo Strauss, a leading figure in neoconservatism, was one of his teachers.
Relocation to Washington
In 1973, Paul Wolfowitz moved to Washington, where he first worked at the US Agency for Arms Control and Disarmament, participating in strategic arms limitation negotiations (1973-1977), and then at the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (1977-1980).
During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, he was Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, and then US Ambassador to Indonesia. There, acquaintance with a moderate Muslim society convinced him to use American military power as a means to promote democracy around the world.
Wolfowitz Doctrine
Paul Wolfowitz, whose doctrine was formulated in the Guidelines for US Defense Planning in 1994-1999, considered the United States to be the only world superpower. Its task is to eliminate any hostile force that dominates the region, which is critical to the interests of the country and its allies. The potential threat from Russia is another important issue that concerns Paul Wolfowitz. His sayings on this subject call to remember that democratic changes in the Russian Federation are not irreversible and, despite temporary difficulties, the country remains the largest military force in Eurasia, the only one in the world capable of destroying the United States.
War architect
Under the administration of George W. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz worked as deputy secretary of defense for political affairs, developing plans for the Gulf War (1990-1991) under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (later vice president of the Bush administration).
He retired from public service, pursuing research, teaching at the National Military College in Washington, DC (1993), and served as dean (1994-2001) at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Baltimore, Maryland.
War in iraq
In 2001, Paul Wolfowitz returned to politics, becoming Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, he supported the invasion of Afghanistan and was a leading advocate for the subsequent deployment of US troops to Iraq. The latter was controversial, and Wolfowitz was criticized for supporting the conflict.
World Bank Leadership
In 2005, he left the Bush administration to become president of the World Bank. One of his main initiatives was curbing corruption in countries receiving loans from his organization.
To this end, in October 2005, Paul Wolfowitz visited Russia. The judicial system of the country needed reforms, and the World Bank allocated 50 million US dollars for these purposes. The same amount should have been allocated from the budget.
In 2007, calls were made for his resignation after two years before Wolfowitz had organized the transfer and promotion of his girlfriend Shahi Riza, who worked at the bank. He announced his resignation from 06.30.07.
Paul Wolfowitz in torn socks
While still in charge of the World Bank during his two-day visit to Turkey, which included a meeting with Prime Minister Rajep Tayyip Erdogan, he visited a mosque in Edirne. At the entrance to the Muslim temple, it is customary to take off shoes, which Paul Wolfowitz did. Socks of the president, whose salary was almost $ 400 thousand, had holes with thumbs peering out of them.
This is not the first time he has been in a similar situation. In Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, Paul Wolfowitz spat on his comb before combing his hair before a television appearance.
Guest lecturer
Shortly after resigning from his post at the World Bank in mid-2007, Wolfowitz became a guest lecturer at the American Enterprise Institute. He remained loyal to United States intervention policies, appearing in major American newspapers, on the conservative Fox News channel, and at numerous institute events.
In February 2015, Wolfowitz became foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Jeb Bush.
Sayings about Syria
The Syrian Civil War is one of the many topics Paul Wolfowitz pays attention to. His sayings on this subject were published, for example, in the London Sunday Times. In particular, he wrote that fears about the consequences of the fall of the regime should be the reason for more active support for the opposition, and not an excuse for inaction. Failure to provide opposition and the ability to defend liberated territories helped maintain the regime’s military advantage and prolonged the struggle.
In September 2013, Wolfowitz compared the climate in Syria with Iraq after the first Gulf War. According to him, Syria is not Iraq in 2003. This is Iraq in 1991. In 1991, the United States had the opportunity, without putting the lives of Americans at risk, to support the Shiite uprising against Saddam and succeed. Instead, the United States sat idle and watched him kill tens of thousands of people. The US did nothing, although it could very easily rebel to succeed. According to him, if this happened, the world would get rid of Saddam Hussein and there would be no second war. Wolfowitz believes that the war in Syria causes more sympathy in the Arab world than even the Arab-Israeli problem, and the United States will not suffer losses from supporting the Syrian opposition, but will be rewarded for it.
Arab spring
Wolfowitz advocated US aggressive intervention in the affairs of states affected by the Arab Spring uprisings, while some of his neoconservative colleagues objected to the idea of promoting democracy in countries such as Egypt. In March 2011, for example, Wolfowitz extolled President Obama's intervention in Libya.
