Embarrassingly self-assured

Supported by his political friends in Washington up to the bitter end, Paul Wolfowitz has finally decided to step down. As he tenaciously hung on to power at the World Bank, he demonstrated exactly how right wingers from the US tend to foster resentment among others, whom they then accuse of being “anti-American”.

15.06.2007

[ By Hans Dembowski ]

Paul Wolfowitz will go, but the self-pity he displayed for weeks while clinging on to the World Bank’s top job has cost him the last sympathy he enjoyed outside his circle of supporters. At the international level, he became known – though certainly not universally loved – as the US deputy secretary of defence who pressed for war on Iraq. As his intellectual integrity seemed speckless and his personal commitment genuine, he was nonetheless considered a worthy partner for debate.

That impression was wrong. In the end, Wolfowitz did not display any sense of responsibility. Backed up against the wall, he stalled and looked for the best tactic – regardless of the damage done to the institution he was supposed to be leading. He will even be allowed to remain its lame-duck president until he steps down at the end of the month. That is part of an agreement with the executive directors, who have essentially “honourably discharged” him.

The scandal is quite simple. There was a potential conflict of interest because he was romantically involved with Shaha Riza, a World Bank employee, when appointed president. The Bank’s ethics commission accordingly recommended that this expert work for another institution. Because her career would probably suffer, it was deemed proper to either promote her or to increase her salary. Wolfowitz then made sure that she received an unusually large salary increase of 45 % (to around
$ 190,000) on top of her promotion. All of this became public just after Easter.

Wolfowitz thus lost face. Today, World Bank employees who complain about nepotism in poor countries are ridiculed. Nevertheless, many conservative Americans still pretend that Wolfowitz was a shining knight in the battle against corruption, stabbed in the back by some international mafia. In their self-righteousness, they also act as though the administration of George Bush did not have its own sorry record of no-bid contracts in Iraq or public funds earmarked for student loans only to be pocketed by big corporations.

Wolfowitz suggests that opponents used the Riza affair to trip him up. Maybe so. But of course, he is responsible for stumbling. Leadership, no doubt, depends on not becoming a victim of intrigue. It also depends on winning over skeptics. Whoever sets out to direct a large bureaucracy with highly qualified staff should tread carefully – especially when one knows that many staff members disagree with one’s views and some even consider the new leader’s very appointment an affront. But instead of patiently discussing issues among equals, Wolfowitz was arrogant and authoritarian.

To the first accusations concerning Riza, Wolfowitz reacted stubbornly, with the basic message being: “That’s unfair; you don’t like me anyway.” How else should one interpret his immediate demand that he only be judged by work done at the Bank, not by his previous decisions. He seemed more like an ex-convict fearing for his second chance in life than like a top official who, after having orchestrated a war, moved on to pull global strings at another position. Let’s not forget, however, that it was Wolfowitz who alluded to the Iraq controversy when his duty was to justify a decision concerning the World Bank.

It is ridiculous how right wingers in the US are now complaining about spouses of other high-ranking World Bank officials still working at the Bank. Surely, conservative Americans know the difference between a publicly known marriage and an informal love affair in day-to-day office life. Usually, these people are prone to preaching strict family values, including chastity instead of condoms as a way of preventing HIV/AIDS – no matter how many human lives are at stake.

Bush followers tend to kill debates by calling their opponents “anti-American”. Naturally, this kind of self-assuredness is unconvincing – and so it was in the Wolfowitz case. Whoever wants to lead the world, needs to live up to their own standards. Some Americans, of course, voice similar criticism about the White House. Unfortunately, those who are the butt of such criticism would probably even stoop so low as to accuse Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ speaker of the House of Representatives, of being anti-American.