Wolfowitz for World Bank?

If President Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank has your head spinning, you might want to read this set of interviews from the BBC featuring two experts, with contrasting opinions on the nomination. Response from the foreign press has been critical.

In its news report, the New Zealand Herald calls Wolfowitz the "Administration's leading neo-conservative hawk" and the International Herald Tribune said Europe reacted with a "mixture of surprise, consternation and curiosity." The Asia Times called him "a chief architect of one of the most unpopular wars in US history" and added:

Wolfowitz's 35-year public and academic career - notably lacking in direct experience either with banking or development, let alone the bank's supposed core mission of poverty reduction - has also steered a wide berth around both Africa and Latin America, two regions of enormous importance to the bank.

Because the US is the largest shareholder in the 184-nation development institution, the leader has traditionally been a US citizen. In making the nomination, President Bush said:

The World Bank is a large organization; the Pentagon is a large organization - he's been involved in the management of that organization.

The combination of the Wolfowitz nomination with the prior nomination of John Bolton to the UN is seen by some as a direct slap at Europe, according to Mark Leonard, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform:

Nominating Wolfowitz and Bolton can be seen as provocative a couple of weeks after Bush was in Brussels telling Europeans how much he wanted to work with them.

Also from Britain, Patrick Watt, representing the charity Action Aid remarked:

As well as lacking any relevant experience, he is a deeply divisive figure who is unlikely to move the bank toward a more pro-poor agenda.

The head of sister agency International Monetary Fund (IMF) said, in a prepared statement:

If he is confirmed by the member countries, Wolfowitz will bring to the bank an impressive record of public service with extensive experience of management and of international affairs, in particular in Asia and the Middle East.

Peter Timmer, Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, believes that Wolfowitz learned enough about poverty and Islam during his tenure in Indonesia to be an effective leader of the World Bank. He compared Wolfowitz to Robert McNamara, the Vietnam-era defense leader who went on to head the World Bank.