Let’s hope Wolfowitz will listen

I‘m glad President Bush has nominated Paul Wolfowitz to become president of the World Bank.

After all, Bush might have named him national security adviser to replace Condi Rice. At least at the World Bank his poor judgment won’t lead to thousands of needless military and civilian deaths.

In fact, the World Bank would have been a better home for Wolfowitz than the Pentagon, where he is deputy defense secretary. Of all the neoconservatives who pushed for toppling Saddam Hussein, he was the only apparent idealist, the one who seriously believed from the start that Iraq might become a model for change in the Mideast. In person, he exudes charm and intelligence and concern for global humanitarian needs.

But idealism can be dangerous when it morphs into utopian zeal. When it came to Iraq, Wolfowitz refused to countenance any challenge to his superior vision, rejecting any information that contradicted his belief that the going in postwar Iraq would be easy. That willful blindness made possible the insurgency that still threatens Iraq’s future and keeps 150,000 U.S. troops in harm’s way.

With all the celebrations over Iraq’s elections, many people forget how badly Wolfowitz handled the planning for the postwar.

He told me in November 2002 that he would be “astonished” if there were instability in Iraq after a war and that this risk had been “totally exaggerated.” He said the historical model for post-Hussein Iraq would be “post-liberation France.” In other words, the Pentagon’s favorite exile, Ahmed Chalabi, would return from London – as Gen. Charles de Gaulle returned to Paris – and lead Iraq to democracy.

How could the holder of a doctorate who had been dean of Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies believe such nonsense? I still don’t have the answer.

Wolfowitz disparaged Gen. Eric Shinseki for stating that hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops would be needed to stabilize postwar Iraq. He bought the Chalabi line that Iraq was a secular, middle-class society that would quickly morph back to normal, although any Iraq expert could have told him that the middle class was decimated and the strongest Iraqi social force was Islam.

The State Department and CIA did predict postwar disorder, but Wolfowitz didn’t want to listen. Chalabi told him what he wanted to hear.

Such gross miscalculations meant the United States was unprepared for Iraq’s postwar chaos, which is why the insurgency and criminal mafias could flourish. Wolfowitz also told Congress that Iraqi oil money would quickly enable Iraq to pay for reconstruction, although it was widely known that Iraq’s degraded fields needed years and billions in investment for restoration. You and I are now footing the bill.

Iraqi reconstruction – for which Wolfowitz also bears responsibility – has a dismal track record. Huge sums have been wasted on large projects while Iraqi unemployment remains substantial. Early American plans to privatize Iraqi industry, and possibly oil, quickly foundered on legal realities, along with Iraq’s dismal economic and security conditions. Mercifully so, since too-swift privatization might have created another Russia, where natural resources were sold for a song to a handful of sharpsters.

Hadn’t the Pentagon ever reviewed the sad story of Russian privatization, where U.S. pressure for fast action created a fierce public backlash against free markets and renewed Russian yearning for a strongman?

Apparently not.

So, you ask, why reward such bad performance with the top spot at the World Bank?

Reason 1: At least Wolfowitz appears to care about development issues. The president just picked as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations a man who openly despises the world body – John Bolton. The World Bank choice could have been far worse.

Reason 2: Wolfowitz might just follow in the steps of Robert McNamara, who left the Pentagon at the height of the Vietnam War to become president of the World Bank. McNamara fought a determined battle against global poverty. Of course, he had reflected on the mistakes he made in Vietnam; so far, Wolfowitz hasn’t admitted to any mistakes.

Reason 3: In running the World Bank, Wolfowitz, the utopian visionary, may finally be forced to face facts. “Unilateral bullying,” says Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development, “won’t work.” The World Bank can certainly do with more accountability, and there is room at the bank for “a kind of vision,” says Birdsall. That includes presidential pressure on lenders for democratic reforms – Wolfowitz’s passion.

But a World Bank president can’t just cram D.C.-made formulas down countries’ throats or he will generate lender backlash and development failure. Wolfowitz now says he wants to listen. Let’s hope he’s finally seen the light.