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Architect of War Plans
All else has been amateur. This appointment should remove any hint of doubt about President George W. Bush’s desire to reshape the world into his own liking. It would be humorous, except that it is too paralytic. Bush has nominated Paul D. Wolfowitz to lead the World Bank. Of course the very first thing White House physicians need to do is check on whether George Bush has somehow lost his mind. Wolfowitz? Yes, Wolfowitz. Let’s make sure we’re not getting people confused. This is the New American Century fellow who is number two man in the Department of Defense, one step below Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld? Exactly.
No. He has teaching experience and he has 24 years working in or around the United States defensive machinery, and he is good at writing to people with his hawkish letters, but nothing in his experience is even remotely related to banks or banking or the uses of money. No fiduciary or financial background; just straight war all the way down the career path. Very steady in his hawkish views, though somehow he managed to miss Vietnam, as did Mr. Cheney and virtually all the other Bush hawks, including George Bush himself. Wolfowitz was right out there telling America why we needed to crush Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction. OK, that turned out a little bit wrong, but no matter, the ultimate goal was achieved; it did finally get us into the attack Iraq mode and that was what he was after for years beforehand. So it didn’t make much real difference. And he told Congress that Iraq was so rich in oil that it would only take a few minutes to straighten out the mess there. Well then we can at least be sure to know that a World Bank under Paul Wolfowitz will have its very finger on the pulse of nations it plans to help. Presuming Iraq will eventually spring back. Too bad, of course, that this pulls Wolfowitz out of the Defense Department. Yes, yes. He would have been the natural next choice for a successor to Rumsfeld. And Rumsfeld is reported to want out in a couple of years. So what is Bush telling Wolfowitz; we don’t want you running defense? More likely it’s simpler than that and has to do with wanting a dedicated idealogue to take over the World Bank. Everybody considers Wolfowitz neoconservative, attack oriented, hawkish. OK then what is the reason. Could it be that Wolfowitz himself decided he was tired of Defense and asked for the World Bank job? No, that’s just not his style. Bush wants Wolfowitz to do some rough work there, do it the way Bush wants it done and Bush didn’t leave any options open. Could be that the whole World Bank appointment is a ruse to oust Wolfowitz from Defense, of course, but Bush has never hesitated a moment to pick the guy or gal he wants for a particular post. So Bush has plans for Wolfowitz. If Wolfowitz can boil down the American view of how to use money as well as he articulated how to use arms, that could show the world that the United States has a plan and will follow it. Wolfowitz will just be using a different weapon – money – to accomplish the overall goal of the Bush Doctrine. So he is still doing the same thing, just with different tools. How about all the other nations involved in the World Bank, aren’t they going to balk at this? Maybe. But all they can really do is try to live with Bush’s decision. He is basically ramming Wolfowitz down their throats. That is how he does things. It doesn’t matter that the World Bank has 184 nations behind it; what matters to him is that he picks the president. People at the World Bank are pretty stunned. They do have the power to veto the appointment. Yes they do. But a war on the leadership would give the lie to all the public speechifying that is going around about the great cooperation among allies. Still it’s going to look like Bush pushed in a non-banker to make the other countries fall in line with his thinking. It really doesn’t have anything to do with actual banking; it has to do with measuring what America wants and going after it in a heavy-handed manner. An implacable power broker like Wolfowitz might be exactly what Bush needs there. And perhaps that’s all that the administration wants: control of the purse strings on the international stage. It really is breathtakingly simple; Bush will tolerate no disagreement. 3/20/05 WF |
