3) Indonesia. Wolfowitz is extremely proud of his work in Indonesia and the Philippines. I got the distinct impression that he does not think this story has been told accurately—and he wishes that George P. Shultz had done more with the story in his memoir. He was constantly being warned, vis-à-vis Marcos, that the Reagan administration was doing to Marcos what Carter had done to the Shah and the results would be similar. He managed to convince everybody to do it anyway, with a happy result, he thinks.

4) Somalia. Wolfowitz is also proud of what “41` (Bush Sr., IJ) did in Somalia, as a purely humanitarian mission before it got screwed up later. That led me to ask about:

5) Liberia. Why, I asked him, didn’t the Bush administration act more precipitously in Liberia? It could have saved tens of thousands of lives and scored political points against people like me who have, to put it politely, a hard time taking the humanitarian arguments for the Iraq war seriously. Wolfowitz did not really disagree with this. He said he was glad he was able to get the administration to act when it did. He clearly wanted to leave the impression that he would have liked it to happen earlier -without explicitly criticizing his own administration for not having done it. He spoke of the logistical difficulties of finding the necessary troops and of what happens after you get rid of the bad guys. (Hmmmm)

6) The Sudan. Wolfowitz also clearly indicated that he would like to see something happen to save the people who are still savable in Dafur, etc. Again, he said nothing clearly quotable on this point; but it was my clear understanding of the way he put things that he wanted to leave this impression as well.

He has long had a close relationship with centrist democrats in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and though centrist democrats might not sound very exciting, they are an improvement on the democratic centralists of Tiananmen Square (loved by the Kissinger crowd) or the pseudo-democrats such as Ferdinand Marcos or Gen. Suharto, favored by the more Cold War neocons. Wolfowitz was one of the first to go ashore in the tsunami relief operation mounted by the U.S. Navy, an operation widely and rightly accounted a major success. He prizes his Asian contacts and the relationship with moderate Islam that they symbolize.

On the excruciating question of Israel/Palestine, Wolfowitz is not at all the "Likud" fan that his defamers portray. He almost went out of his way to be jeered and hooted at a pro-Israel rally in Washington in the early days of the Bush administration, by telling the gung-ho crowd not to forget the suffering of the Palestinians. He has spoken quite clearly of linkage between the demolition of Arab rejectionism and the demolition of Jewish settlements. I can’t exactly say that I know the man, but on the occasions that I have met him I have been very struck by the difference between his manner and the amazing volleys of obloquy and abuse that have been flung at him.