Nicholas F. Benton

A Wolfowitz in Sheep's Clothing

So what are we to make of Bush's appointment yesterday of whiz kid Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank? What are we to make of it coming just a week after Bush appointed United Nations hater John Bolton to be the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.?

Democratic Party leaders seem confused. Sen. John Kerry, his party's presidential nominee last year, was quoted last night calling it "mystifying," adding, "It makes you wonder whether all the administration's words about mending fences with our allies are just lip service." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said it is "hard to understand," adding, "I don't see a match of commitment to the vision of the World Bank."

Of course these and other Democrats, off the record, might be thinking differently. But then, that's the problem. We don't and may never know because this administration's success is due in huge part to a pliant media and meandering political opposition.

But what do Wolfowitz and Bolton have most in common and in common with the objectives of the Bush administration? It can be summed up in the word, "unilateralism." The deployment of these men to top posts at the U.N. and World Bank is scary when measured against that single word. But it is in keeping with the mission outlined in the neocon New American Century ideology.

It is important to appreciate that this unilateralist ideology is, itself, a means to an end. The end is the strategic control of all the planet's most vital natural resources. All other competing nations and interests must be subordinated or pushed out of the way of an unfettered resource flow under the direction of the U.S.

That's why the United Nations must be rendered obsolete, for the sake of weakening all other nations empowered by its existence. That's why the U.S. invaded Iraq, for the control of the flow of its oil and as an opening gambit in this new American century. That's why the World Bank, under Wolfowitz, will turn away from the humanitarian thrust of the last decade under James Wolfensohn, and revert to deploying its resources for the construction of dams and pipelines that will send everything right into the pockets of Bush's richest friends.

Bolton is up for the job at the U.N. A former tobacco lobbyist protege of Jesse Helms and segregationist Tom Ellis, Bolton once said, "There is no such thing as the U.N. If the U.N. Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." He has suggested that Congress stop paying into the "U.N. system."

As badly as the world needs the U.N.'s World Health Organization to combat the developing avian flu pandemic, for example, we can expect a troglodyte like Bolton to hold the U.N. hostage to Bush "abstinence only" approaches to birth control and AIDS prevention while tying its hands against any meaningful action.

Unless, that is, his sheer incompetence gets in the way. It was Bolton who drew the ire of a leader of his own party, Sen. Pete Domenici, for failing miserably when tasked as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control with negotiating the disposal of tons of weapons-grade plutonium with Russia. Domenici, an expert on nuclear proliferation, blamed Bolton by name during a Senate hearing last summer. Saying he was "amazed" that the negotiations failed, Domenici said, "Mr. John Bolton, who has been assigned to negotiate this, has a very heavy responsibility. I hate to say that I am not sure at this point that he's up to it."

Few people consider Wolfowitz incompetent in the same way. Many more tend to think of his extreme miscalculations in testimony before Congress on the troop requirements and cost of the invasion of Iraq as witting lies, not honest misjudgments.

We can expect Wolfowitz to retool the World Bank as a powerful weapon on behalf of unilateral U.S. interests, especially since the U.S. is by far the major player in maintaining its $20 billion annual aid budget and 10,000 employees.

Rather than a humanitarian focus, aimed at relieving poverty and disease, the World Bank under Wolfowitz can be expected to function as a major tool in the advancement of the U.S.'s unilateralist global resource grab. While Wolfensohn shifted 40 percent of the World Bank's financing from dams, bridges and infrastructure projects to programs promoting local development, Wolfowitz will reverse that trend, with the added twist that all his moves will carry that special neocon ulterior motive.

Iraq is small change compared to the damage that this maniac can inflict on the most vulnerable all across the globe with his new powers.

Nicholas F. Benton may be emailed here.