What Mr. Wolfowitz Doesn't Acknowledge

From the vigorous self-defense mounted by Mr. Paul D. Wolfowitz yesterday in Washington, DC before the World Bank’s board of directors, it does seem as he’s in self-denial over the real issues at stake in his troubles at the Bank. My informed conviction is that the allegations of misconduct leveled at him over his role in re-assigning his girlfriend from the Bank to the State Department on unusual salaries constitute a gift that he handed Bank employees most of whom were uncomfortable and even averse to his presence at the Bank.

His fate at the Bank was sealed long before he even got there by his prominence in the ideologically-driven presidency of George W. Bush’s administration and what many see as the muscular style that characterize its policies. One is talking about the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which is seen by many people in the world as an outright over-reach and violation of international law. Mr. Wolfowitz compounded the aversion that many of the Bank employees had already cultivated for him when he brought some aides along with him from his previous job and they proceeded to behave in ways that gave Bank employees cause to believe that those aides had been unleashed on the Bank to implement the administration’s ideologically-driven worldview on the Bank’s auspices.

The charge he made that “a conscious campaign to undermine his effectiveness as president” at the Bank is therefore off mark. So is the one that his ouster will send a “terrible message” that would make “an impossible situation for any successor”. Bank employees did not want him around as president from the very outset. He quickly confirmed their worst fears upon arrival when his aides brandished the same muscular administrative style that Bank employees associated the Bush administration with.

My other suspicion is that both Mr. Wolfowitz and Bush are quite aware of what got them into this trouble at the Bank. Their refusal to throw in the towel amounts to the stubbornness that many people associate them with. Two things are certain here: His continued stay as president at the Bank will have a negative impact at the Bank. The declaration of good faith that he seeks from the board to pave way for his ‘voluntary’ resignation may not be enough to salvage him from the damage from his previous job for any future appointment to Bank-type multilateral institutions.