First Stop, Iraq

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None of the four men — Bush, Powell, Cheney and Schwarzkopf — most closely identified with the decision to cease hostilities at midnight, Feb. 27, has ever publicly disowned it. Indeed, of the broader top echelon of decision makers at the end of Gulf War I, only one has cast doubt on how it was concluded — and at the time, nobody asked his opinion. But his misgivings about the cease-fire 12 years ago have arguably had more of an effect on global politics than the certainties of those who are sure they were right. That man was Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary for policy in the Pentagon, the third-ranking civilian under Cheney. He was 47 at the time and already a fixture in the Washington policy village, one of those men who spend their life flitting among government positions, foreign embassies and academia. Wolfowitz has served every President since Gerald Ford except Bill Clinton. A man of great personal charm, he has friends of all political persuasions. Of his many distinctions, the most unusual, perhaps, is this: he is the only Washington bureaucrat who has been fictionalized in a Saul Bellow novel.

That odd fact sheds light on Wolfowitz's membership in a much smaller subset of Washington officials. In Bellow's novel Ravelstein, the Wolfowitz character is a brilliant former student of the book's eponymous hero, who is based on Bellow's old friend and fellow professor at the University of Chicago, the culture critic Allan Bloom. It was at Chicago, the home of Bloom and the conservative political philosopher Leo Strauss, that Wolfowitz was first exposed to the set of ideas that is now often called "neoconservative." In their belief system, neoconservatives — or neo-Reaganites, as some prefer to be called — are at once pessimists and optimists. The world, they believe, is a dangerous, threatening place. Civilization and democracy hang by a thread; great beasts prowl the forest, ready to prey on those not tough enough to meet them in equal combat. At the same time — this is the optimistic bit — the U.S. is endowed by Providence with the power to make the world better if it will only take the risks of leadership to do so; if, in the current jargon, it is sufficiently "forward leaning." At crucial times, they argue, the U.S. has been just that — notably when Ronald Reagan used American technological prowess and cash to challenge the Soviet Union to a contest it could not win.

The U.S., neoconservatives believe, is unique in its power and its principles. It cannot allow its mission to be tied down by international agreements that diminish its freedom of action. At the same time, neoconservatives insist that theirs is a generous and internationalist vision; other nations, other peoples, will willingly support U.S. policies — which, by definition, are good for them as well as Americans — if only those policies are clearly articulated and implemented with determination.

These beliefs are not the work of thoughtless gunslingers. Wolfowitz, like many of his colleagues, couldn't be less of a cowboy. (Not many cattle in Chevy Chase, Md.) These are men whose shoes are more likely to be penny loafers than hand-tooled boots, who speak foreign languages (even French!) and are at home in rarefied academic environments. They know what they think. In a recent interview Wolfowitz told TIME, "I believe this country is what it stands for, more than anything else. If we're not true to our principles, we're not serving our national interest." He bridles at the way some lampoon him, as if he believes that, with U.S. intervention, Jeffersonian democracy will pop up in the Middle East like mushrooms after a storm. But he explicitly links the growth of democracy to America's interests. "The tendency toward successful representative self-government," he told TIME, "works for the benefit of the United States and the world."

When Wolfowitz heard that Gulf War I was over, he didn't share the inner circle's view of a job well done. Although he didn't suggest that Schwarzkopf should march on Baghdad — and has not done so since — he was disappointed that the war did not continue long enough to ensure Saddam's downfall. He was horrified when the U.S. stood by as Saddam's helicopter gunships mowed down the Shi'ites in southern Iraq whom the U.S. had encouraged to rise in rebellion. To Wolfowitz, Saddam's survival represented an opportunity missed. In a 1998 congressional hearing, he said, "Some might say — and I think I would sympathize with this view — that perhaps if we had delayed the cease-fire by a few more days, we might have got rid of him."

Regimes like Iraq's, dictatorial and willing to acquire and use terrifying weapons, have long been a preoccupation of the neoconservatives. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, they argue, it is these states that most threaten the U.S. and other democracies. They are today's beasts in the forest, and they need to be tamed. Shortly after Gulf War I ended in 1991, Wolfowitz got a chance to show how. Cheney asked him to overhaul the Pentagon's basic strategic-planning document, known as the Defense Planning Guidance. In March 1992, a draft was first leaked to the New York Times. Forward leaning wasn't the half of it; the document suggested that the U.S. should discourage other nations "from challenging our leadership." The U.S., the draft went on to say, "may be faced with the question of whether to take military steps to prevent the development or use of weapons of mass destruction." Those steps, Wolfowitz argued, might include pre-emptive action — and the Guidance made clear that both Iraq and North Korea were among those at whom the new policy would be aimed.

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