____________________
...the Wolfowitz affair is an expression of more fundamental
political issues. It stems above all from the conflict
between American imperialism and its major rivals in Europe
and Asia. In the end, there was a clear international lineup
of the US, Canada and Japan, the relatively isolated
defenders of Wolfowitz, against all the European powers
including Britain, France and Germany, as well as China,
India, Brazil and the bulk of the poorer countries.
In the two years that have passed [since Wolfowitz
nomination], the crisis in Iraq has worsened, the Bush
administration¹s political base has crumbled, and the world
position of American imperialism has deteriorated in every
sphere, from military strength to financial solvency to
moral standing. The Wolfowitz affair, in the final analysis,
is an expression of this decline of the United States and
reflects the greater willingness of rival capitalist powers
in Europe and Asia to push back against the supposed ³sole
superpower.²
____________________
Original source URL:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/wolf-m19.shtml
Behind the World Bank¹s ouster of Paul Wolfowitz
By Patrick Martin
19 May 2007
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In the end, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz went out with a whimper,
accepting a mildly worded resolution of the bank¹s board of governors thanking
him for his two years at the helm of the international lending institution while
declaring that ³mistakes were made.²
The details of the scandal that triggered his departure are both sordid and
relatively small potatoes. He arranged for his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, a
mid-level official at the bank, to receive a $60,000 raise, and then claimed,
apparently falsely, that ethics and human resources officials at the bank had
approved the deal.
When the circumstances became known, through documents uncovered by a watchdog
group, the bank¹s staff association began to organize protests demanding his
ouster and the board of governors set up a subcommittee to conduct an
investigation. The panel¹s report, delivered Monday, found emphatically that
Wolfowitz had broken the rules and seemed to regard himself as being above them.
Wolfowitz¹s most rabid defender, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal,
has argued that the financial scandal involving Shaha Ali Riza is a deliberate
set-up, orchestrated by European and Third World officials at the bank and
backed by the European powers, who opposed Wolfowitz¹s supposed ³reform² agenda.
Whatever the truth of this charge, there is an undoubted irony in the sudden and
touching concern of the Journal and much of the Republican right over the
manufacture of petty scandals involving private matters for use in political
warfare. They had no such compunctions when they were howling for the
impeachment of Bill Clinton.
It is, however, true that the Wolfowitz affair is an expression of more
fundamental political issues. It stems above all from the conflict between
American imperialism and its major rivals in Europe and Asia. In the end, there
was a clear international lineup of the US, Canada and Japan, the relatively
isolated defenders of Wolfowitz, against all the European powers including
Britain, France and Germany, as well as China, India, Brazil and the bulk of the
poorer countries.
These tensions were expressed throughout the two years-plus that Wolfowitz
headed the bank, which has been identified with a somewhat softer approach to
imposing the demands of imperialist finance capital on the most oppressed
countries. Where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) represents the
stick‹loans only on onerous and stringent conditions, including virtual
dictation of domestic economic policy‹the World Bank supplies the
carrot‹low-interest lending, and in many cases outright grants, with much of the
funding going to the most impoverished countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Wolfowitz sought to shift the bank to a policy tied more directly to US foreign
policy, although this was concealed by rhetoric condemning corruption and
pledging a greater concern for Africa and other areas of the worst poverty and
social misery. Loans were cut off to countries that clashed with Washington, as
in the case of Uzbekistan after it terminated US basing rights for warplanes in
the fighting in Afghanistan. Loans were directed to governments like the US
stooge regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and to other US client states on friendly
terms with the Bush administration.
To carry out this policy, Wolfowitz brought in his own leading personnel,
including former Pentagon and White House aides who alienated the staff with
their high-handed bullying and right-wing prejudices. He also recruited
right-wing politicians from governments aligned with US policy in Iraq. Former
Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio was installed as general counsel, while a
right-wing Roman Catholic politician from El Salvador, Juan Jose Daboub, was
named one of two managing directors.
In April it came to light that Daboub had ordered references to ³reproductive
services² and ³climate change² removed from World Bank documents, in line with
Bush administration efforts to undermine family planning programs and abortion
rights and to deny the reality of global warming.
When the Shaha Riza scandal first erupted in mid-April, at the time of the World
Bank¹s spring meeting in Washington, it was clear that Wolfowitz had lost the
support of a majority of the bank¹s board of governors. Nearly every European
government indicated its opposition, and the European Union parliament passed a
resolution calling for his ouster.
Wolfowitz denounced his critics stridently, claiming he was the victim of a
smear campaign involving ³orchestrated leaks of false, misleading, incomplete
and personal information,² and vowing never to give in. The White House, seeing
the campaigns against Wolfowitz and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales unfolding
at the same time, initially adopted a circle-the-wagons approach, with both Vice
President Dick Cheney and chief political aide Karl Rove demanding a
full-throated defense of both men.
The abandonment of this defend-to-the-last-ditch posture is an indication of the
international isolation and political weakening of the Bush administration.
The decisive role in the World Bank affair seems to have been played by the
German government, which makes the third-largest contribution to the bank¹s
financing and which holds the European Union presidency during the current
half-year.
Eckhardt Deutscher, the German representative on the board of directors and the
senior board member, gave a speech April 19 declaring that the bank needed
³credibility, credibility, credibility² in its leadership, a clear rebuke to
Wolfowitz¹s record of preaching against corruption worldwide while practicing
the opposite in his domestic arrangements.
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Washington later in the month, she
reportedly discussed the issue with President Bush. Merkel made no public
comment, even while Bush was vociferously defending Wolfowitz at a joint news
conference at the White House‹a contrast that provided a striking illustration
of the underlying tensions between Europe and the United States.
The final blow came on May 16, when German Development Minister Heidemarie
Wieczorek-Zeul, a Social Democratic member of Merkel¹s coalition cabinet, openly
called for Wolfowitz to resign and said that he would not be welcome at a forum
on aid to Africa that the World Bank is holding in Berlin next week. ³He would
do the bank and himself a great service if he resigned,² she said. ³It would be
the best thing for all concerned.²
There are many ironies in the Wolfowitz affair. The former deputy secretary of
defense, one of the principal advocates and architects of the war in Iraq, was
not hauled before a Nuremberg-style war crimes tribunal, as he so richly
deserved, to face charges of plotting an illegal war and conspiracy to commit
mass murder. Instead, his career, at least in public office, has ended in a
grubby scandal. Wolfowitz will now likely enter the world of well-paid think
tank sinecures and multi-million-dollar book contracts.
Wolfowitz left the Pentagon to become the US nominee to head the World Bank in
early 2005. His selection was a calculated slap in the face by the Bush
administration to the vast majority of countries and governments which had in
one way or another opposed the invasion of Iraq. It expressed the contempt with
which the US ruling elite views international institutions‹even those set up by
Washington in the past and especially those which in any way put restraints or
limits on the exercise of American military, political and economic power.
The European countries, which supply twice as much of the World Bank¹s financial
resources, accepted this slap in the face under a 60-year-old arrangement in
which Europe selects the managing director of the IMF and the US chooses the
head of the World Bank. This division of the spoils dates back to the post-World
War II settlement, when most of Africa and much of Asia, nearly half the world¹s
population, still lived under European colonial rule and the US routinely
established and overthrew governments in its semi-colonial domain in the Western
hemisphere.
The two key leaders in accepting the Wolfowitz provocation were French President
Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, whose representatives had
opposed the war in Iraq during the UN Security Council debate leading up to the
US invasion, but who had, by 2005, acceded to the US occupation and wanted to
pull back from any further confrontation with Washington. They meekly bowed to
Bush¹s nomination of a notorious war criminal to head an institution supposedly
devoted to combating world poverty.
In the two years that have passed, the crisis in Iraq has worsened, the Bush
administration¹s political base has crumbled, and the world position of American
imperialism has deteriorated in every sphere, from military strength to
financial solvency to moral standing. The Wolfowitz affair, in the final
analysis, is an expression of this decline of the United States and reflects the
greater willingness of rival capitalist powers in Europe and Asia to push back
against the supposed ³sole superpower.²
See Also:
The latest Bush provocation: Wolfowitz named to head World Bank
[19 March 2005] - http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/wolf-m19.shtml
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