Context of '1991-1992: Bush Administration is Split on Bosnia Policy'

Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile, studies for his doctorate in math at the University of Chicago where he gets to know Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent cold-war strategist and a mentor for Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. After receiving his degree, Chalabi moves to Lebanon where he works as a math teacher at the American University of Beirut. His brother, Jawad, is also living in Beirut and runs Middle East Banking Corp. (Mebco). [American Prospect, 11/18/2002; Salon, 5/5/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004; Christian Science Monitor, 6/15/2004]

Albert Wohlstetter, the ideological father of neoconservatism (see 1965), arranges a meeting in Istanbul bringing together 13 Americans, 13 Turks, and 13 Europeans. Wohlstetter’s protege, Richard Perle, is possibly present. The policies discussed at the meeting later become the basis of the Turgut Ozal administration’s pro-American policies in Turkey (see September 1980) (see December 1983). [American Enterprise Institute, 11/22/2003] Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, is a mentor to Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. [Think Tank, 11/14/2002] He sees Turkey as “a US staging post for Middle East contingencies and as a strategic ally of Israel.” [Evriviades, 1999]

Albert Wohlstetter introduces Ahmed Chalabi to Richard Perle, undersecretary of defense for international-security policy. [American Prospect, 11/18/2002]

There is a growing conflict within the Bush administration between the “selective engagers” and an alliance of “hardliners” and “liberal humanitarianists” over whether or not to intervene militarily in Bosnia. The selective engagers believe that the US should militarily intervene only in cases where US strategic interests are directly threatened. Richard Perle and Albert Wohlstetter are prominently mentioned among the hardliners. [Western, 7/1999]