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In Slate, Timothy Noah examines why Wolfowitz was "wrong about Iraq:"

According to the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz habitually "belittled" the threat posed by al-Qaida prior to Sept. 11. In one much-quoted passage from Clarke's new book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, Wolfowitz complains at a White House meeting, "You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because [the] FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don't exist."

Regarding Clarke's interpretation of Wolfowitz "belittling" the problem, I have grave doubts that stem from Clarke's personal animus and tendency to use rather dramatic descriptions of people and situations. Regarding Wolfowitz's theory about state sponsorship:

A. We don't know for certain what "official" state resources may or may not have played a role in any terror attacks on US interests. Noah assumes as conventional wisdom that Al Quaeda had no help.

B. Wolfowitz may be defined as partially correct in this sentiment, if you define state sponsorship as states tacitly approving the funding and technology that provide resources to Al Quaeda. This has been established as fact.

But now that Noah has established that Wolfowitz was "wrong about Iraq," perhaps subtly voicing the idea that this overarching wrongness has had a misguided impact on the decision to invade (I strongly disagree - Wolfowitz urged toppling Iraq long before the potential nexus of terror and rogue states became the primary national security focus, and he still would today, post-invasion and no WMD) ... I find his rationale for Wolfowitz's conclusions genuinely interesting: overconfidence bred from success.

Here, once again, Wolfowitz was taking American foreign policy several steps beyond the usual cold war thinking of the era. When he studied the Persian Gulf in the late 1970s, Wolfowitz had started out with the predicatable cold war anxieties about a Soviet drive toward the oil fields of the Middle East, but he then had gone on to focus on a different possibility, the prospect that Iraq might try to dominate the oil fields by invading its neighbors. So too with Wolfowitz's China policy. ... In both instances, Iraq and China, Wolfowitz was beginning to think about foreign policy issues that were to arise a decade later, after the Soviet collapse.

Pretty prescient analysis by any standard. And this pattern of successful analysis helps me to disagree with Noah's blanket assumption that Wolfowitz was so incorrect in his assumptions regarding this latest war. Democracy may not materialize in a timeframe that is well-regarded by cable news and election cycles, but Wolfowitz's theory of self-determination in Iraq setting the scene for a greater revolution in the Arab world and Iran hasn't been given sufficient time to play out. Even so, within a year of the invasion, Iran's drive toward reform has been progressing at accelerated speed, Syria faces rioting Kurds that demand freedom, Libya has given up WMD in pursuit of integration into the international community, and the Arab Summit was hastily called off due to disputes over how to approach Democratic reforms amongst the member states. Who would have ever thought such an idea was even possible?

Wolfowitz, that's who. I wouldn't bet against him.

Posted by Bill at March 31, 2004 12:20 PM | TrackBack (0)