Hawks in the chicken coop

United States President George W. Bush confounded his critics once again by nominating two known hawks to critical positions: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank, and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton as the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Wolfowitz, quintessential neo-conservative, architect of the Iraq War and bereft of any domestic or international banking experience, replaces WB President John Wolfensohn who leaves his post June 1st. (Two wolves in succession, one wag notes.)

Bolton, the American chief arms control negotiator who Time Magazine says "loathes the U.N." (March 21, 2005) and whom Newsweek calls "an undiplomatic diplomat" (March 21, 2005), replaces former Ambassador to the Philippines, U.N. Ambassador and Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, now the Director of National Intelligence.

Both Wolfowitz and Bolton appear certain of confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate despite expected Democratic opposition and, in the case of Wolfowitz, the grumbling of European countries other than the United Kingdom.

Although Wolfowitz’s nomination must be approved by the 184-nation World Bank’s board of directors, the position of President is traditionally reserved for an American while the top post at the International Monetary Fund is occupied by a European. The biggest contributor to both institutions is the United States. In practice, both are supposedly "surrogates of the U.S. Treasury," as author Chalmers Johnson characterizes them in his recent book The Sorrows of Empire. Both, incidentally, have their headquarters at Washington, D.C.

In nominating Wolfowitz, Bush praised him as "a proven leader and experienced diplomat who will guide the World Bank effectively and honorably during a critical time in history – both for the Bank and the developing nations it supports." Wolfowitz reacted: "I really believe in the mission of the bank, which is reducing poverty. It is a noble mission and a matter of enlightened self-interest."

There is nothing in Wolfowitz’s record that validates these lofty sentiments. None of his supporters can cite any experience that he has had in bank management or international development assistance. Among his previous posts in government were assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Ambassador to Indonesia.

But Wolfowitz’s principal claim to fame is his role as the Bush administration’s leading neoconservative, a reputed ultra-rightist and protégé of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Together with Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz was instrumental in undermining former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s diplomatic and international approach to post-9/11 Iraq.

As one of the principals in the archconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which included Cheney, Rumsfeld, Richard Armitage (of R.P-U.S. Bases Negotiation fame, later Deputy Secretary to Colin Powell) and, hold your breath, John Bolton, the U.N. Ambassador-designee, Wolfowitz signed a now-famous letter to then President Bill Clinton on January 26, 1998. The date is significant because the Republicans were out of power at the time and 9/11 was over three years away.

In that letter, the PNAC called for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In a subsequent letter to then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senate majority leader Trent Lott, the group complained that Clinton had ignored them and reiterated their recommendation of a regime change in Iraq. These letters from personalities that eventually became leading lights of the Bush administration are often cited as among indications that George W, even when not yet in office, had already decided to invade Iraq, regardless of the evidence of Saddam’s alleged complicity in terrorism.

As one of the prime movers behind the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wolfowitz is also criticized for supposed misrepresentations and miscalculations about, among others, Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, the number of American soldiers that would be required to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, and the funding that would be necessary to maintain peace-keeping operations.

Wolfowitz famously predicted that American soldiers would be "welcomed" to Iraq by a deliriously happy and newly-liberated populace so it would take a much smaller force to secure the peace than was necessary to win the war. He also issued allegedly understated American military casualty figures.

He also predicted that France and other dissenters in the Security Council would support the Iraq war after they saw U.S. forces welcomed in Baghdad and that Europe would help pay for the costs of reconstruction. Neither has happened. He is also charged with seriously overestimating the amount of revenues that would be generated from Iraqi oil which would then reduce costs of the war to the U.S.

Why then would Bush appoint a controversial ideologue like Wolfowitz to head such an important institution like the World Bank? Because, I think, Wolfowitz is the perfect tool to ensure that the Bush political gospel of messianic democracy and of the economic imperative of globalization is spread throughout the world, in particular the developing economies that resort to the IMF/World Bank for assistance.

Joseph Stiglitz, former WB chief economist and chief of the Clinton Council of Economic Advisers, recalls: "(I)n my time at the White House…and at the World Bank, I saw that decisions were often made because of ideology and politics." Chalmers Johnson sees Clinton as the "more effective imperialist" than Bush because the former imposed his will on other nations by camouflaging his policies as "globalization." Bush, he says, "dropped all legitimating principles and adopted the view that might makes right."

Apparently, that’s changed somewhat. In a second term racked by huge budget deficits, a ballooning national debt and a weakening dollar, Bush has belatedly grasped the connection between economic and political policy. He has turned to his ideological stronghold, and the neoconservative clique which has served him well. The grimly determined and intellectually rigid Wolfowitz is, in that sense, the right man for the job.

John Bolton, though, is just seen by many as a really weird choice, as we explain in a future column.