NEWSWEEK: If the Iraq threat is so real, why has it been so difficult to get the international community onboard?
WOLFOWITZ: For one thing, there’s a lot of what economists call “free rider” activity going on. People are so used to the United States taking care of problems, so they can reap the benefits in whatever form serves their purposes. Sometimes it’s as simple as they don’t want to buck a domestic tide. Blair is a real stand-up guy, and it takes a lot of political courage to do that. But, unfortunately, part of his problem is caused by the number of leaders who are actually demagoguing this issue and whipping up opinion.
But even in countries that are strong allies of ours there’s a majority that’s against us.
Yeah, but they’re hearing all these echoes from France and Germany and supposedly respectable European opinion. I think another part of it is that they’re not threatened directly the way we are. They didn’t experience September 11th. We have, historically, also had to lead the world on the issue of nonproliferation. Finally, I don’t think many people really appreciate what a horrible regime this is. If it comes to the use of force against Saddam Hussein, it will be a war for the Iraqi people, not against the Iraqi people. It will be a war to end Saddam’s war against the Iraqi people.
The U.N. has estimated that the cost of rebuilding Iraq will be $30 billion over the first three years. Are you worried that you won’t have enough allies to help, not only with the war effort but to the postwar rebuilding?
It is very encouraging how many countries have stepped forward and given us help of various kinds, from basing [and] over flight rights to actually contributing forces. This is not going to be a unilateral action, if it’s required. But a lot who live in the neighborhood do not want to be identified as Saddam’s opponents until they’re sure that he’s gone.
What keeps you up at night as you’re poised for this enterprise?
The thing that worries me the most is these chemical and biological weapons, because we’re quite sure he has them, and we know he’s used them, and we don’t think he’d have qualms about doing so [again]. There are a lot of other things that one can worry about. There’s tension up in northern Iraq. [And] it’s going to be a challenge to try to move as quickly as we can to hand over responsibility to Iraqis.
How do you make that transition to Iraqis governing themselves?
My instinct says it comes through the process of elections. I suspect that some people will emerge as natural leaders, and other people will emerge as natural troublemakers and will hopefully get marginalized.
Do you have specific people in mind?
No, absolutely not. This is not something for Americans [to decide]. I suppose I could tell you one thing. I would like someone who says: “I’m not a Sunni, I’m not a Shia, I’m not a Christian, I’m not a Turk, I’m not an Arab, I’m not Kurd. I’m an Iraqi.”
How do you think a regime change in Iraq could lead to democratic reform in the Arab world?
The notion of a sort of domino effect that would spread from one country to its neighbor in a kind of mechanical way is silly. But freedom and democracy are enormously powerful ideas. If you look at what’s happened in East Asia over the last twenty years, you see that usually these things happen in an evolutionary, gradual way.
What is your response to critics who question the administration’s commitment to an Arab-Israeli peace settlement?
The president was very, very clear when he spoke last summer about Israel and the Palestinian state living side by side in peace. Clearly the appointment of a moderate Palestinian as prime minister has given us a new opportunity to discuss the peace. But I also think it’s important to tell the world–especially the Arab world–that we’re not dealing with Saddam Hussein in order to ignore the Arab-Israeli problem. We’re concerned about both. Saddam Hussein has been one of the leading opponents of peace between Arabs and Israelis for more than two decades.
