US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Photograph: AP
In one of the most intriguing stories of the day, the Financial Times reports that Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy secretary of defence and one of the chief hawks in the Bush administration, is on the short list to succeed James Wolfensohn as president of the World Bank.
The worldbankpresident blog describes the report as a bombshell as it would be a controversial choice. You can stay that again. Of course it would not be the first time that someone from the Pentagon has headed the world's leading development institution. That distinction belongs to Robert McNamara, who came to grief over the Vietnam war. He ran the Bank from 1968 to 1981, in what could be seen as a very public act of contrition for his conduct of the war.
Any similarities end there. Wolfowitz as far as we know has no regrets about the war. He also has no background in development, although that has been no hindrance to past candidates. As far as the White House is concerned, it wants someone who carries clout on Capitol Hill, as one of the main jobs of the World Bank president is to pass the begging bowl in Congress to get money for the institution. That is why in the past non-entities such as Barber Conable, a congressman, was given the job.
Wolfowitz of course would carry an enormous amount of prestige. No doubt he would be a controversial choice for the developing world, but he would fit perfectly into the White House world view. The Bush administration is on a mission to spread democracy around the world - albeit on a highly selective basis. For George Bush, countries such as Burma and Iran are "outposts of tyranny", but he would not dream of lumping friends of the US such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia into that category. Be that as it may, one can easily see Wolfowitz using World Bank loans to promote democracy around the world.
To give him his due, Wolfowitz has consistently pushed democracy. Back in the 1980s, when he was assistant secretary of state for east Asia, Wolfowitz played a key role in levering out President Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippines once the people had turned against him. Of course the question arises as to whether Wolfowitz would really leave his Pentagon perch, where he wields much more influence than he would at the World Bank.
