Paul D. Wolfowitz: A friend of Indonesia

Jusuf Wanandi, Jakarta

I met Paul Wolfowitz for the first time when he was head of Policy Planning at the State Department, and then again as Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific in the early 80's. We became close friends when he was ambassador in Jakarta from 1986 to 1989. He remains a friend of Indonesia, although he has not had the opportunity to visit Indonesia many times since he left Indonesia and joined the government. He was one of the best U.S. ambassadors in Indonesia since I have been following U.S. affairs when Marshall Green was ambassador in 1965.

Not only was he an official representative of the U.S. President, dealing with the Indonesian government and bureaucracy, but he was also actively engaged with Indonesian society. Everything he did was full of enthusiasm. He has shown his empathy for the Indonesian people and its diversity in his dealing with many groups in society. He showed his empathy to the Indonesian people when, at his farewell address, he mentioned the need for flexibility and openness in the Indonesian political system under president Soeharto.

This has created strong reactions among the elite and the Indonesian government particularly. He was one of the few Western ambassadors who kept a close relationship with Muslim groups and was the first Western ambassador ever to have been invited to give a lecture at Muhammadiyah University in Jakarta. He was delighted to learn about their progressive ideas and interpretation of Islamic teachings.

He was especially close to Abdurrahman Wahid, former Nahdlatul Ulama chairman, and Nurcholish Madjid, president of Paramadina University, two stalwarts for Islamic reforms and modernization. He always made the time to meet them in Washington D.C. during his busy schedule as deputy secretary of Department of Defense.

After he left and joined the Bush Sr. Administration in 1989, he still kept contact with Indonesia and Indonesians everywhere. When he was dean of SAIS (School of Advanced International Studies) at Johns Hopkins University during the Clinton Administration he was a regular visitor to Indonesia, especially in the transition period when Soeharto stepped down in 1988.

He also headed USINDO (US-Indonesia Society) as chair of the board until he became deputy secretary of defense. He received many guests from Indonesia, although he was busy as Deputy Secretary, especially after Sept. 11, 2001. He publicly exposed his admiration for both Turkish and Indonesian Islam, which have been generally compatible with modernization and democracy. He stated this, among other things, at an important speech he gave at the Brookings Institute in 2002. He helped former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, when she was struggling to get her act together after Sept. 11, and asked for patience from his colleagues in the U.S. Administration.

He was definitely behind the quick response from the U.S. forces to the tsunami disaster in Aceh. When he visited Jakarta after his trip to Aceh in February, a lot of his old friends met him and had an open exchange with him. They were more bewildered by Paul's ideas on Iraq and the Middle East than negatively critical of him. He answered them quite openly and admitted some of the mistakes made at the beginning of the post-war nation building in Iraq because of misinformation about the expected problems that followed a war that was very short.

The U.S. was more prepared for refugees and hunger than on the security problems they would face. It could be argued that many Indonesian Muslims are against his policies, especially towards Iraq. But they would like to hear from him themselves. He did plan to come to Jakarta in early December 2003 for a conference, but had to cancel it because his boss Secretary Rumsfeld went to Afghanistan and Iraq. He would have met a lot of Muslim leaders organized by Muhammadiyah to hear from him about U.S. policies to have a debate with them.

Will he be good for Indonesia as the World Bank president? For sure, he is a person that has great empathy towards a developing Muslim country that is trying hard to make democracy work and would like to modernize the country by efforts to alleviate poverty, educate the people and keep them healthy.

We might argue about his methods to achieve democracy in the Middle East, especially Iraq, but he has the right idea that change has to happen in that region towards modernization, democracy and economic development. With the elections in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, a start has been made, but the outcome is still a question mark. So many things still have to fall in place, and they need luck in the future to secure sustained freedom and democracy, peace and modernization. This has already started and let us hope that real progress will happen in those places.

Perhaps Paul's shortcoming was that he was not listening enough to a wide range of expertise that could make his approaches to achieve his goals more acceptable. He can do that now as head of the most important international finance institution to lay down the foundation for modernization, development and progress in the developing world.

The author is Co-founder, Member, Board of Trustees and Senior Fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta.