Crying Wolfowitz

As the World Peace Herald says, both his lack of economic experience and his poor performance as Rumsfeld's undersecretary are strong reasons not to appoint Wolfowitz as World Bank President.

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."

Another prominent development economist, Jeffrey Sachs, has also spoken out on this nomination. "It's a very surprising and in many ways an inappropriate nomination," he said.

"Hundreds of millions of people depend for their lives and livelihood on the efforts of professionals to fight extreme poverty," he said, adding that he was speaking as a development expert and not as a United Nations official.