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Stage is set:
Cold-Hearted Neocon Ideologue ‘Wolfie’
Is Brought Down By Steamy Love Affair
By William Finucane
All the stories in the regular newspapers portray Paul D.
Wolfowitz as a man who has gotten into a little hot water because he helped his
girl friend get a raise. This is, of course, rubbish.
His girl friend is Shaha Ali Riza, a Muslim-Arab feminist
of all things, a ‘Senior Communications Officer’ for the World
Bank. Her romance with the neoconservative Wolfowitz predated his appointment as
World Bank president. Everyone who knew anything of Wolfowitz knew his lover
worked at the World Bank. This was no secretive liaison. Still, the appointing
executive, United States President George W. Bush forged past that problem and
named Wolfowitz.
This means one of two things happened.
Either Bush was oblivious to Wolfowitz’
love life, which seems possible with Bush, or he knew all about the relationship
and went ahead anyway, under the now well-worn, ‘who gives a damn’ arrogant
approach of this president. Probably the latter.
What Bush wanted at the head of the World
Bank was a Bush loyalist. He wanted a man equally as conservative as himself,
someone who could force those 24 operating members of the bank – from throughout
the world – to see the world as Bush and Wolfowitz perceive it. Liberals in the
World Bank were petrified of what Wolfowitz might do, and it is now obvious that
their fears were justified.
Immediately he had started sewing the
conservative seeds in the international body. He and a handful of conservatives
from the Bush camp were changing some of the bedrock policies of the World Bank.
The Wolfowitz aides worked against the World Bank organization’s belief in
global warming, and opposed contraceptives and abortion in family
planning programs for the poorest regions of the world, and that is just a part
of what they were attempting.
Undercutting the World Bank and its humanistic policies was
precisely why Wolfowitz was implanted in the world financial organization. His
reason for being named to head the facility was simply to turn the World Bank
into a conservative, nay a neoconservative body.
Just look at Wolfowitz’ background: As Deputy Secretary of
Defense in the administration of President George W. Bush, he was one of the
founding fathers of the Bush war propaganda machine, and a neocon architect of
the Iraq War as a means of regime change that would supposedly cause a domino
effect among Middle East dictatorships; the idea was that a new, Western-style
Middle East would emerge, providing easy access to oil and ending any threat to
Israel.
Why, then, when Wolfowitz became discredited in the
Pentagon, would the president stick this war genius in the World Bank? Simply
to try to make the world organization a mirror of Bush/Cheney policy. This was a
huge undertaking. It would take a world shaker, someone with supreme confidence,
perhaps arrogance, in the perfection of his worldview; it would take a Wolfowitz.
Whatever doubts the foreign officials in the World Bank may
have had were quickly assured. Wolfowitz planned to change the World Bank – and
the world – utterly. It would be the so-called war genius holding a real-life,
worldwide organization hostage as his personal toy, an experimental model to
play with.
Such an international nightmare could have been the bank’s
fate is Wolfowitz wasn’t somehow brought to heel, so the World Bank members have
decided to beat Bush and his crony at their own game. They decided to make an
international case of bank President Wolfowitz’s favoritism based on his love
affair with his woman.
Europeans do not look on affairs of the heart as do
Americans, nor do they worry about a superior and a co-worker having a romance.
It is merely life. No big deal. Were Wolfowitz a marvelous boss, or even a
reasonable man and a relatively competent executive, the World Bank would simply
ignore his romantic leanings.
But he is none of those things.
And the affair with the Muslim-Arab woman serves Wolfowitz
up handsomely. He can be canned, if deftly handled, almost immediately. Even the
victim himself seemed to hint he might resign his post if his case is handled
properly. Assuredly, it will be. Then comes the question of who Bush will
nominate as the next World Bank president, but it may be more difficult to find
another true neocon ideologue willing to enter the arena on the behalf of a
reactionary American president with an approval rating of 28 percent.
5/6/07
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