4/26/17, "Iraq War Architect, Paul Wolfowitz, Is Becoming Optimistic On Trump," Zero Hedge, Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog
"I spent the last 50 minutes listening to an interview of neocon Iraq
war architect Paul Wolfowitz, a truly unfortunate experience [interview via Politico (click the link to hear the whole thing)] which felt
like a tomahawk missile attack against my cerebrum. Regrettably, we
still live in a world where you have to listen to the musings of such
war criminals, as they continue to have considerable influence in
certain circles of American power, and quite possibly within the Trump
administration itself.
There were four main takeaways from the man’s monstrous, deluded
ramblings. First, he hates being called a neocon, so make sure you
continue to do so — publicly and with as much vigor as possible. Second,
he’s learned absolutely zero lessons from the spectacular, historic
failures that resulted from his neocon policies. This makes
perfect sense, because...mentally deranged people in leadership positions
who blow up the world suffer no consequences for their actions.
Indeed, they are often rewarded handsomely for their failures (a
similar thing happens in corporate America, see Wall Street). When
failure is rewarded, you get a lot more of it, which pretty much
summarizes the U.S. experience in the 21st century. Third, he didn’t
vote for Hillary or Trump in the 2016 election. He considered voting for
Hillary, but what gave him pause was the fact she wasn’t hawkish enough
on Russia.
Given the above, you’d think such a man would have little to no
influence within the Trump administration. Unfortunately, this is not
the case, which brings us to the final takeaway. Not only has Wolfowitz
become more optimistic about Trump (we all know how much bombing and
destruction turns him on), but he may have his neocon tentacles deep
within the Trump camp via his relationship with both General McMaster
and General Mattis.
Here are a few highlights from the interview via Politico (click the link to hear the whole thing):
"Iraq might descend into “chaotic violence” - or worse. The broader Middle East could “go to hell” all over again.
If the United States doesn’t step up under President Donald
Trump, Paul Wolfowitz warns in a new interview for The Global POLITICO,
our weekly podcast on world affairs in the Trump era, it would represent
an “opportunity” blown, a missed chance that would result in “lost
American influence” and a win for “hostile actors.”
Oh so things are going swimmingly in the Middle East. Who knew.
"Yet
Wolfowitz has not entirely given up on the idea that the United States
is essential to stability in a region that has seen very little of it. Without American involvement, for instance, he fears Iraq could splinter apart entirely.
“The alternative is to let a very important, critical part of the world
go to hell literally and lose American influence,” he says. “We
may not like to talk about oil, but this is the engine of the world
economy and if it’s dominated by the wrong people, the consequences here
in the United States are very serious.”
The guy has some nerve, but at least he doesn’t pretend U.S. interventions are driven by “human rights” concerns.
"To
liberals and other critics, Wolfowitz would be the last person they
want Trump to listen to. Long a lightning rod because of the havoc
unleashed by the Iraq invasion, Wolfowitz has never apologized for
advocating the war, although he has said—and repeated in our
conversation—that it was not carried out as he would have wanted it to
be. In recent days he‘s jumped right back into the public debate,
nudging President Trump from the pages of the Wall Street Journal to
follow up his bombing strike in neighboring Syria with more aggressive
action—and, he tells me, privately emailing with Trump Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis and national security advisor H.R. McMaster, both
longtime contacts since his Bush days, in hopes they will pursue a U.S.
strategy of stepped-up engagement in the Middle East."
There’s that relationship I alluded to earlier, but there’s more.
Specifically, Mattis was Wolfowitz’s senior military assistant when he
first came to the Pentagon in 2001.
Moving along…
"Like
many other hawkish Republicans—“do me a favor,” he says, and don’t call
him a “neocon,” which he believes is a charged word wielded by critics—Wolfowitz
adamantly opposed candidate Trump in 2016, put off by his “America
First” rhetoric, his rejection of the Iraq war as a disastrous mistake
and his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other autocratic
leader.
Indeed, Wolfowitz tells me that he did not vote for Trump because
he feared he would be “Obama on steroids” given Trump’s campaign-trail
reluctance to project American power and leadership in the Middle East
and elsewhere—and that he decided not to vote for Hillary
Clinton either because he was not sure she would pursue tougher policies
and thought she had joined Obama in misjudging Putin with their failed
Russia “reset” policy.
When I ask about Trump, Wolfowitz waxes surprisingly optimistic about his chances in a region that has humbled many an American president before him. “Look, he’s said a lot of things. He’s changed a lot of things,”
he says. “I don’t think anyone would deny that he’s opportunistic, and I
don’t think anyone would deny that he would like to be ‘the greatest
president in modern times’ or ‘huge’ or you pick your adjective. And I
think to achieve a Dayton-like peace settlement in Syria would not only
be something that would be widely acclaimed, it would be hugely in the
interest of the United States.”
It’s a reminder of what a head-spinning few weeks it’s been for
anyone paying attention to American foreign policy, with Wolfowitz and
others who openly proclaimed Trump unfit for the presidency now
contemplating the opportunity his presidency presents to advance their
policy agenda, and even those who were Trump’s harshest critics within
the Republican Party only a few weeks ago now praising him.
“I am like the happiest dude in America right now,”
Senator Lindsey Graham said the other day, citing Trump’s Syria strike
as well as his tough rhetoric against Iran and nuclear-armed North
Korea; this winter, Graham and his close ally Senator John
McCain were issuing near-daily warnings about Trump’s foreign policy.
Now, he says, “we have got a president and a national security team that
I’ve been dreaming of for eight years.”
Now 73, good-humored and gray, Wolfowitz has returned to
the conservative American Enterprise Institute as a scholar since his
time in Bush’s Pentagon and a short, rocky tenure as president of the
World Bank. When we meet in a studio at AEI’s grandly renovated
new headquarters on Massachusetts Avenue, he picks up on the phrase
making the rounds in Washington that Trump’s critics take him literally
but not seriously, whereas his supporters take him seriously but not
literally."
Comforting to see that a notorious war criminal is not only “good
humored,” but also a “scholar” at an American think tank after
destroying Iraq and creating ISIS. But hey, that’s how the American Empire rolls."
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