Wolfowitz: The Power with the Holes in His Socks
(La Stampa, January 30, 2007)A video from Turkish TV broadcaster NTV showing Paul Wolfowitz walking into Semiliye Mosque at Smirne with holes in his socks encapsulates the absent-minded character of a man that is considered one of the most cautious and influential in Washington. At World Bank headquarters, which he has presided over since 2005 thanks to an agreement between George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac, the news from Turkey wasn't that surprising: forgetting to check one's socks before entering a mosque, where - everyone knows - one must go barefoot or bring enough money for sock-shopping at the bazaar, was to his staff absolutely in keeping with a man that dedicates most of his personal resources reflecting on politics, making plans or imagining historical parallels.
"If a former ambassador to Indonesia forgets to check his socks the day he visits a mosque, as Wolfowitz did," one of his aides says, asking to remain anonymous, "this is not out of a lack of respect toward Islam but, much more trivially, to a lack of attention to practical details." Although he spent four years as second-in-command at the Pentagon - America's biggest and most complex U.S. federal agency - Wolfowitz is also the former president of the Paul Nitze School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and he is still remembered by some of his pupils for his classes, which were "extraordinary for their improvisation."
When he received visitors to his Pentagon office, the neocon intellectual, who is regarded as the mastermind behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq, dwelled on the details of nations that have played host to him, and rapidly dispensed details of the tactical intricacies of military operations from Baghdad to Kabul. And yet, Wolfowitz's absent-mindedness became a cause celeb after liberal filmmaker Michael Moore made a joke of it in his 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 Watch . With a hidden camera, he succeeded in capturing Wolfowitz combing his hair after bathing his comb in saliva.
But when it comes to looking beyond the daily agenda, Wolfowitz's absent-mindedness is regarded as something to tout. It's no coincidence then, that upon being named leader of the World Bank, he chose Africa as his first destination, and that it took just a brief unplanned visit to the tiny nation of Burkina Faso for him to realize that - despite widespread poverty - there is a glimmer of hope in that corner of the world thanks to the unusually peaceful cohabitation, not only between Muslims and Christians, but amongst tribes divided by over 30 different dialects, each having its own histories of religious differences
To his detractors, though, his absent-mindedness is seen as a confirmation of a superficiality that invites serious blunders and political mistakes. During a breakfast at Downing Street in 2005, Wolfowitz admitted to not having read a memorandum on the forthcoming G8 Summit because he didn't want, "to be distracted from the historical precedents" of the arguments the memo touched upon. Tony Blair, though - and more importantly his aides - saw this as a lack of respect. Two years earlier during a briefing at the Pentagon, he had to apologize for forgetting the number of troops engaged in Afghanistan. His spokesman was then forced to put right the mistake by releasing an official statement.
Conscious of this Achilles' heel, there coexists within Wolfowitz a healthy dose of self-irony. This relates to the color of this hair, which is now grey, as much as it does to his well-known firmness in defending his principled positions. It's not for nothing that one of the phrases to which he most often resorts is, "We should not be diverted from the objectives we pursue." He used it while at the Pentagon in regard to his certainty that the Iraq War wouldn't compromise the long-term battle against al-Qaeda, and he re-used it at the World Bank to stress the need to work with Africa to achieve drastic reforms, to enable it to resume development, limit waste and fight corruption.
(Translated By Enrico Del Sero)