Daily Inspiration Quote by Paul Wolfowitz

Wolfowitz frames occupation as etiquette: don’t “interfere,” just “help.” It’s a neat bit of rhetorical self-exoneration from an architect of the Iraq War, because it pretends the central problem in Iraq is meddling by other outsiders rather than the original, foundational act of meddling that toppled a government at gunpoint. The line works by laundering power through language. “Foreigners” becomes an undifferentiated category that can be pointed at anyone except the speaker’s own project, and “internal affairs” is invoked as if sovereignty were an intact object that can be respected after being broken.

The real move is the conditional welcome: you may enter Iraq, but only under a definition of “help” set by the interveners. That’s not hospitality; it’s gatekeeping dressed up as principle. By pairing “interfere” with “destroy,” Wolfowitz collapses political opposition and armed insurgency into the same moral bucket. It’s not an argument about strategy or legitimacy; it’s an attempt to pre-label dissent as sabotage. “Help,” meanwhile, stays conveniently vague, broad enough to cover contractors, coalition troops, intelligence services, and friendly governments, while “interference” can be assigned to regional rivals, the UN, journalists, or Iraqi factions that don’t cooperate.

Context does the heavy lifting: in the early years after the invasion, as violence spiked and international criticism intensified, the coalition needed a story that re-centered Iraqi agency without surrendering control. This quote offers that story: Iraq should be sovereign, but only in the way that validates the occupation’s aims. The irony is that it’s an anti-interference plea delivered by interference’s most recognizable executive.