10 May 2002
Wolfowitz Refutes Unilateralism Charges, Cites U.S. Leadership
(April 29 L.A. Times interview) (2730)
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz rejects the notion that the
current U.S. administration is unilateralist in international affairs,
contending that it is simply exercising its proper leadership role.
"To me a lot of the difference is not unilateralist versus
multilateralist, it's whether you lead or not," Wolfowitz said in an
April 29 interview with Los Angeles Times Syndicate reporter Nathan
Gardels. "This president is leading. He's setting a very clear
course," Wolfowitz said.
Besides countering the charge of U.S. unilateralism in foreign
affairs, Wolfowitz discussed:
-- The role of U.S. military and political power;
-- U.S. policy toward Iraq;
-- Prosecuting the war against terrorism while dealing with the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
-- The Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Climate Change Convention;
-- U.S.-European relations;
-- U.S.-Muslim relations; and
-- U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
Following are excerpts of Wolfowitz's interview:
(begin excerpts)
U.S. Department of Defense
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
April 29, 2002
(Interview with Nathan Gardels, Los Angeles Times Syndicate)
Gardels: [T]he U.S. now has the preponderant military power in
history.... What is the point of having this power? What is the
strategic way to use this?
Wolfowitz: I think ... what is really remarkable and very positive in
this era is it's not just that we have such substantial military
capabilities, but the most militarily competent countries in the world
besides us are our allies. And even Russia is beginning to move from
clearly no longer an enemy until in certain ways becoming a potential
ally.
But this is not the Roman era when you could use military power to
enforce your will on subject nations, nor is this country at all
politically of a mind to do so. Military power is a much more
defensive tool.
So the real power of the United States is not its military power. The
real power of the United States I think is more important than
military power is our economic power and more powerful than both I
think is our political strength and what we stand for and the fact
that all around the world even in some countries where the regimes
hate us the people admire our system and want our kind of system.
And ultimately me to me the important point is for us it would be very
congenial to have a world in which people are free to govern
themselves and ... because of the way we define our interest there's a
sort of natural compatibility interest between the United States and
most countries of the world. I think the trend towards self-government
takes things in our direction. That's our great strength, not the fact
that we can defeat any army that comes against us.
Gardels: The point of strength though, is in effect to protect and
promote the capacity of people to freely govern themselves.
Wolfowitz: I think so. It's sort of like a protective fence around
things. It allows you to set certain boundaries and it allows the idea
of large armies crossing borders, at least for the time being, does
not seem to be a major threat because of that strength. That's sort of
the limit of what it does. I shouldn't say it's the only thing. It's
enabled us to go after terrorists in Afghanistan in an impressive way.
Gardels: If American security is at stake and we see a clear danger
and want to prevent it from becoming a present danger in terms of mass
destruction weapons, what's wrong with unilateralist instinct? [Also,]
after the axis of evil speech can you feel any impact, not from our
allies and others, but from those -- Iran, Iraq, North Korea. The
response of a leadership, the response of the powers that be to that
strong rhetoric?
Wolfowitz: I suppose one is defensive because unilateralism has this
bad odor. But I think the president's been very clear from the
beginning that we were attacked, we're going to take the measures we
need to defend ourselves....
But it is also not a notion that we can or must go it alone. I think
that's why one rejects that notion....
But we are getting a lot of cooperation from a lot of people and to me
a lot of the difference is not unilateralist versus multilateralist,
it's whether you lead or not. This president is leading. He's setting
a very clear course.
That relates to the second part of your question which is the
president was by no means ruling out diplomacy. Indeed I think if you
want diplomacy to work you've got to have leverage. That actually
should be a first part of Diplomacy 101 although people seem to
frequently forget it. You don't get the kinds of regimes we're talking
about to change policy simply by having nice conversations with them.
And I don't think it's an accident that it was after the State of the
Union message that we finally got the North Koreans responding to our
indications of over a year ago that we were willing to talk with them.
I think you see signs of positive change in Iran motivated I think by
the same concern. If they don't find a way to get right with the
United States it could be very bad.
Gardels: In ... Iran and North Korea there's been some movement, but
nothing on Iraq. ... [T]he military has a plan. But I know the
president hasn't made a decision....
Wolfowitz: The military is prepared for all kinds of things and
continues thinking and planning and preparing, but the president has
made no decision.... And it's not simply to be prepared if the
president makes a decision. We are prepared also if Saddam Hussein
does.
Gardels: A month from now the U.N. voting on the inspections going
back to Iraq, do you have any faith in that process at all?
Wolfowitz: ... I think the standard has to be that under [U.N.
Security Council] Resolution 687 [Saddam Hussein] is required to have
gotten rid of all this stuff six months after the end of the Gulf War.
The fact that he still has it is a violation and it has to be ended. I
can't speculate here about what would be convincing, but it's going to
take a lot more than just inspectors wandering around the desert
aimlessly to demonstrate that that's happened.
Gardels: ... Isn't it true ... that the Sharon incursion has benefited
Saddam...? Made him less isolated? Less vulnerable to U.S. pressures?
Wolfowitz: We have two challenges. One is to try to deal with the
Arab-Israeli problem both in the short term to try to reduce the level
of violence and in the longer term to find some way to a political
solution because that's the only solution that really works. At the
same time, as the president's made very clear, we have a problem
providing our own security and dealing particularly with this very
dangerous nexus between weapons of mass destruction and hostile
regimes that support terrorism. We've got to pursue both and I think
progress on either one of those agendas will help you on the other one
and difficulties on either one of those agendas obviously does create
difficulties on the other. But I think there's no alternative but to
press ahead as strongly as we can on both. I think the president made
that pretty clear, even in the statement he made sending Colin Powell
out to the region.
I do think it's important to say that there's no question in my mind
that if Powell hadn't gone the situation would have become a lot
worse. There was a real potential for this war spreading to Lebanon
and Syria. There was a real potential for Sharon going much deeper and
even arresting Arafat. So I think against what I think were realistic
expectations for that trip, I think Powell accomplished a lot.
Gardels: This is a Chris Patton quote. He says, "Sharon has hijacked
the war against terrorism." ... [w]here does the U.S. interest in the
war against terrorism intersect with Israel's interest against the
Palestinian authorities? And where does it depart?
Wolfowitz: It seems to me that the core of the problem is that this
tactic of suicide bombing or homicide bombing as the president calls
it has created enormous difficulties both for any hope of the peace
process but also for clarity about what we stand for I think in terms
of fighting terrorism and I think it's just very simply wrong for some
people -- and it seems to me far too many Europeans -- to kind of
suggest that that kind of terrorism is OK and to distinguish between
good and bad terrorism.
But the president has also been absolutely clear and I think it's
important for us to remain clear that the ultimate solution to the
Arab-Israeli problem or the Israeli-Palestinian problem. It has to be
a political settlement essentially based on resolution 242 on a
Palestinian state and that in some form or other the issue of
settlements which some people say is very dear to Sharon's heart is
going to have to be addressed. But the obstacles to addressing all of
that is in fact the suicide bombers and it would be nice if we heard a
little more from the Europeans who have enormous influence over
Arafat. Because Arafat doesn't care about how much his people suffer,
but he does care about his standing in world opinion. It would help if
we heard more from Europeans about how the suicide bombers, the
homicide bombers, who are the obstacles to a Palestinian state, to the
end of the occupation, was all there on the table at Camp David two
years ago. The only way to get it back is to end the terrorism....
Gardels: Peacekeepers are now on everybody's lips.... Can you imagine
any circumstance in which U.S. troops would be used as peacekeepers in
Israel-Palestine?
Wolfowitz: If there were real peace to keep, I suppose yes, but
there's a tendency I think when you have a problem that seems
otherwise insoluble to say let's throw peacekeepers at it. That's in
effect what we did in Lebanon 20 years ago and the result was
terrible. We did it in Bosnia after there was a peace agreement and
the result was very positive. So the question is what peace are they
keeping and how are the peacekeepers going to work? ... There is no
peace to keep -- not yet, anyway.
Gardels: To go back to the unilateralist argument at the beginning,
the question about America's role. ... [T]he U.S. has withdrawn from
the ABM Treaty. ... [T]he Kyoto Treaty is considered part of it. There
may be a taking back of the signature on the ICC [international
Criminal Court].... And some suspect after the Nuclear Posture Review
that the next treaty to fall is the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty.... So people look at this and say America is becoming an
isolationist hegemon....
Wolfowitz: I just think that's nonsense. ...[W]e are engaged in the
deepest nuclear reductions we've ever made.... Yes, there are some
agreements out there that I think the U.S. did a poor job of dealing
with or negotiating.... To go to Kyoto and sign a treaty that ... the
Senate voted I believe 97-to-nothing in disapproval of Kyoto, was
pretty bipartisan. That's not a very good way of presenting U.S.
interests and it's not a very good contribution I think to
multilateral activities....
I think, I suppose one reason why I don't at all accept this notion of
unilateralist is I really think that a lot of what we're fighting for
are things that most of the people of the world aspire to. Take very
specifically the Muslim world. I was ambassador to Indonesia for three
years, the largest Muslim population of any country in the world. I
think the overwhelming majority of Indonesian Muslims, and I strongly
believe the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world, really do
aspire to live in the kind of world that we would like to see for
them. A lot of their problems have to do with tyrannical regimes or
corrupt regimes, and to want to change that I don't think makes us
unilateralist. I think it makes us potentially the allies of the great
majority of the world's people. And it's not always the easy way, but
it's what leadership is about.
Gardels: -- Europe is forming their own identity against U.S.
leadership. ... This talk of unilateralism, this perception is a way
of defining their own cohesion some way politically.
Wolfowitz: Maybe, but I think there's still a huge reservoir of
pro-American sentiment and desire to cooperate with the United States
and it may be stronger in some countries than in others, and it may be
stronger in individual countries than when they sort of all get
together as a group.
But you know, ten years ago when the Berlin Wall came down people said
okay, we don't need NATO any more, that's the end of NATO. Yet now, 12
years later, people are saying NATO is essential to stability in the
Balkans, NATO is essential to the security of the United States here
at home.
It was 1975 I think when Kissinger declared the year of Europe and
everybody immediately said oh, U.S.-European relations are the lowest
point they've ever been. It is in the nature of this alliance to have
a certain amount of that kind of friction which I think is part of
what ultimately makes it a strong relationship because people voice
their views and people's views change in the face of that.
Gardels: You're famous for being the hawk in the administration ...
but ... America's been attacked on its own soil. It is not a hawk to
defend America's interests and it's not unilateralist. I guess that's
the point that needs to be made. That's not a hawk to do that. That's
what your job is, isn't it?
Wolfowitz: I think it is. I don't like the label because it seems to
me the label suggests you're somebody who's eager to go to war at any
time, anywhere, anybody, and that's certainly not me.
But I am totally unapologetic that I think what we've done in
Afghanistan is right. I think it has to be done. I don't think you can
respond to that kind of attack on your country by going around and
taking international public opinion polls as to what you ought to do.
I think leadership, which is what this president has shown from the
beginning, does include convincing people that what you're doing is
right and I think we've done a pretty good job of that. And I think
the president is also right in saying we can't continue living
indefinitely with this specter of hostile countries supporting
terrorists and threatening us with weapons of mass destruction. We've
got to do something about it. If there are political and diplomatic
ways to achieve that I would much prefer that to the use of force. I
don't think that makes me a dove, either. I'd like to get the results.
I'd like to get the results in the most effective possible way for
American interests and I think that's very clearly what President Bush
thinks....
Gardels: That's a good full picture. Do you have anything else you
want to be sure that you add?
Wolfowitz: ... One comment worth saying about Afghanistan, because
Rumsfeld and the president have been saying from the beginning that
it's going to be a long struggle, and I think a lot of people, first
they said why is it taking so long. Then in December they decided it
was all over. And we're still fighting there and we're going to be
fighting there and it's going to take persistence and patience. It
can't just be turned over to an international peacekeeping force....
Gardels: There's no timeframe on it.
Wolfowitz: There can't be a timeframe....
Gardels: When the job's done.
Wolfowitz: When the job is done. We are making progress, I feel very
sure about that.
Gardels: Thank you very much.
(end excerpts)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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