Analysis: Bush stuns with Wolfowitz pick

WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- Paul Wolfowitz's name had been coming up time and time again as a potential head of the World Bank since its current president announced his plans to resign at the end of his tenure on June 1. But President Bush's formal announcement Wednesday to nominate the deputy secretary of defense to lead the world's biggest development bank is a highly controversial one.

Wolfowitz is "a compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job at the World Bank. That's why I put him up," Bush said at a news conference Wednesday.

James Wolfensohn, who announced in January his decision to not seek re-election for a third five-year term as the bank's head, meanwhile, stated that Wolfowitz "is a person of high intellect, integrity and broad experience both in the public and private sectors and has qualifications that would be critical to leading the bank group."

But few either within the organization or in the international development community welcomed the nomination of the Defense Department's deputy, especially given his role in the U.S. invasion of Iraq two years ago.

Indeed, even before Wolfowitz's nomination was confirmed, Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning former chief World Bank economist, warned that Wolfowitz's appointment would be "highly controversial" and ultimately against the interest of both the agency and the United States, especially with his lack of experience in development economics and financial markets.

Meanwhile, many would argue that his record as Donald Rumsfeld's deputy has been far from stellar. The neoconservative scholar headed Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington before his third and latest position at the Pentagon, where he became one of the most vocal proponents for toppling Saddam Hussein's regime, accusing the Middle Eastern dictator of maintaining large caches of weapons of mass destruction and also arguing that U.S. forces would be welcomed by Iraqis as liberators once Saddam was ousted.

"His history in dealing with the Middle East is the most troubling," said one bank staff member, adding that the mood in the institution following the announcement of Wolfowitz's nomination is "like a cemetery."

Certainly, the second-in-command at the Pentagon has more enemies than allies in the Middle East, and his heavy-handed approach to foreign policy in general will be a sore point for the aid agency that depends on consensus-building among its 184 member nations. In fact, while many liberals have criticized Bush's decision to appoint fellow neocon John Bolton as the U.S. representative to the United Nations, Bolton will be in New York as the voice of the Bush administration, while Wolfowitz must act beyond U.S. national interest and strive to bring the diverse range of interest to agreement on policy issues of concern to the World Bank.

Still, the latest nomination may well be a trigger for the international agency to reconsider some of its unwritten rules, including the long-standing tradition of appointing a U.S. national to be its head, while the neighboring International Monetary Fund has always appointed a European national since the two institutions were founded following World War II. The United States remains the single-largest shareholder in both agencies, which has been the reason why, unlike the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions have always limited the nationalities of their respective leaders. As a result, while Wolfowitz's nomination must be approved by the World Bank's board members, it is already safe to assume that his appointment is a done deal.

"How can advice on democratic reforms be taken seriously when the multilateral institutions that offer it do not subscribe to the same standards of openness, transparency and participation they advocate?" asked Stiglitz.

He added that given Wolfowitz's record in Iraq and leaving the United States in a quagmire in the already politically turbulent Middle East, "choosing the wrong (leader for the bank) surely enhances the chances of failure."

Oddly enough, though, one factor that may well prove to work in the Pentagon deputy's favor may be his personal life, which sheds a different light on the diehard neoconservative policy wonk. The 61-year-old divorcé has been dating Shaha Ali Riza, a Tunisian-born gender specialist who has handled the bank's external relations on Middle Eastern issues for the past few years. His affection for the Oxford-educated feminist may well be proof that Wolfowitz too can listen to and appreciate a diverse range of ideas, which will undoubtedly be an asset in his new role.

--

(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)