It was announced today that the US plans to nominate Paul Wolfowitz. So I was wrong in my earlier prediction that Randall Tobias would be nominated to be President of the World Bank. I’ll be interested to see what the reaction of the Europeans is to this proposal (which is all it is, at this stage). If they are not happy, then this may just blow apart the system of controlled appointments to international insititutions – which may not be a bad thing.
3 responses to “Paul Wolfowitz nominated to World Bank”
This European, for one, is outraged by the proposal, which feels like a spit in the face for the many European, third world and other governments and peoples around the world who were vehemently opposed to the attack on Iraq (of which Wolfowitz was of course a prime choirmaster) and who will be hard to convince that a leading American neo-con like PW can, or will even try to, subordinate his primitive America-first patriotism to the international mindset required by a very senior international official such as the President of the World Bank. The fact that Wolfowitz has absolutely no knowledge or experience of development issues is the least of the objections to this malevolent proposal. If the governments of the EU can’t get their act together and collectively reject such an insulting nomination, we might as well disband and go home.
Of course we need the US financial contribution to the IBRD’s activities, but I prefer to believe that even President George W. Bush would hesitate to punish the starving huddled masses of the world out of pique at the perfectly justifiable anger of his rich-world partners over such a provocative and manifestly unacceptable proposal by the White House.
Brian
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17 March 05
One day, someone will write a book about how people could come to believe that Wolfowitz is possessed by a “primitive America-first patriotism”. A lot of books.
Please, Brian. Try to become just a little bit informed?
The evidence for Paul Wolfowitz’s views on America’s right to use superior military strength to impose its will on other countries seems pretty strong. Where is your evidence to the contrary?