Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943 in New York, USA) is a United States statesman who served as Deputy 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 perished in the Holocaust, taught mathematics at Cornell University in Ithaca, where Paul received his B. S. In 1963 he went to Washington to take part in the march for civil rights. Wolfowitz later studied political science at the University of Chicago (graduating in 1972), where one of his professors was Leo Strauss, a leading figure in neoconservatism.
Moving to Washington
In 1973, Paul Wolfowitz moved to Washington, where he first worked at the US Agency for Arms Control and Disarmament, participating in negotiations on the limitation of strategic weapons (1973-1977), and then at the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (1977-1980).
During the PresidencyRonald Reagan, he was Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and then U. S. Ambassador to Indonesia. There, exposure to 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 articulated in the US Defense Planning Guidelines 1994-1999, considered the United States the world's only superpower. Its task is to eliminate any hostile force that dominates the region, which is of critical importance for the interests of the country and its allies. The potential threat from Russia is another important topic that Paul Wolfowitz touches on. His sayings on this topic call for remembering 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
In the George W. Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs, developing plans for the Gulf War (1990-1991) under Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (later Vice President in the Bush Jr. Administration).
He retired from public service to pursue academic work, teaching at the National War College in Washington, DC (1993), and serving as dean (1994-2001) of the School of Advanced Internationalresearch at Johns Hopkins University in B altimore, Maryland.
Iraq War
In 2001, Paul Wolfowitz returned to politics, becoming Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. After the 9/11 attacks, he supported the invasion of Afghanistan and was a leading advocate for the subsequent entry of US troops into 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 to curb corruption in countries receiving loans to the organization he leads.
To this end Paul Wolfowitz visited Russia in October 2005. The country's judicial system needed reforms, and the World Bank allocated $50 million for this purpose. The same amount should have been allocated from the budget.
In 2007, there were calls for his resignation after Wolfowitz had arranged for the transfer and promotion of his girlfriend Shahi Riza, who worked at a bank, two years earlier. He announced his resignation from 30.06.07.
Paul Wolfowitz in torn socks
As head of the World Bank, during a two-day visit to Turkey that included a meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he visited a mosque in Edirne. When entering a Muslim temple, it is customary to take off your shoes, which Paul Wolfowitz did. The socks of the president, whose salary wasnearly $400,000 had holes with thumbs sticking out of them.
It wasn't the first time he'd been in this situation. In Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, Paul Wolfowitz spat on a comb before combing his hair for a TV appearance.
Guest lecturer
Shortly after retiring from his post at the World Bank in mid-2007, Wolfowitz became a guest lecturer at the American Enterprise Institute. He has remained true to the United States' policy of intervention, speaking in major American newspapers, on the conservative Fox News channel, and at numerous institute events.
In February 2015, Wolfowitz became a foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Jeb Bush.
Sayings about Syria
The civil war in Syria is one of the many topics that 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 become a reason for more active support for the opposition, and not an excuse for inaction. The inability to secure opposition and the ability to defend the liberated territories helped maintain the regime's military advantage and prolonged the struggle.
In September 2013, Wolfowitz compared the climate in Syria to 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 endangering the lives of Americans, to supportShia uprising against Saddam and succeed. Instead, the United States sat back and watched him kill tens of thousands of people. The US did nothing, although it could very easily have mutinied in order 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 US will not suffer losses from supporting the Syrian opposition, but will be rewarded for it.
Arab Spring
Wolfowitz advocated aggressive US intervention in states affected by the Arab Spring uprisings, while some of his neo-conservative colleagues objected to the idea of promoting democracy in countries like Egypt. In March 2011, for example, Wolfowitz lauded President Obama's intervention in Libya.
Sayings about Iran
In mid-June 2009, Wolfowitz joined in criticizing President Obama for his perceived "weakness" in dealing with the electoral crisis in Iran. The reforms sought by Iranian demonstrators should have been supported, he said. In such a situation, the United States cannot stand aside. America's silence is itself a silent support for those who hold power and a denunciation of those who protest the status quo. It would be cruel irony if, in an effort to avoid imposing democracy, the United States tipped the scales in favor of dictators by imposingtheir will to the freedom fighters.
Wolfowitz criticized the July 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the big five world powers. According to him, the treaty gives in to all the demands of the Iranian regime and provides it with huge additional resources to continue its dangerous activities.
