ON MARCH 2, 2005, Al Kamen, who writes the scoop-heavy "Inside the Loop" column in the Washington Post, addressed the "rumors" and "news reports" that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz would soon be put forward by George W. Bush as president of the World Bank.
"No way that was going to happen," Kamen wrote. "(The notion was too much even for this column.)"
Two weeks later to the day, President Bush posed for pictures in the Oval Office with a smiling Wolfowitz, newly named to serve as president of the World Bank. Bush called Wolfowitz "a compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job at the World Bank. That's why I put him up."
And there it was. Nothing complicated.
European newspapers were filled with angry reaction to the choice. A headline in the Washington Post read: "Nomination Shocks, Worries Europeans." The article quoted one Michael Cox, a despairing professor of international relations at the London School of Economics: "We were led to believe that the neoconservatives were losing ground. But clearly the revolution is alive and well."
Revolution or not, the selection was seen as worrisome in Paris. An Agence France-Presse news story described European objections to Wolfowitz. "He is also held in suspicion as a central figure in the U.S. neoconservative movement, which would like to see the U.S. vision of liberal democracy and free-market economics take root around the world."
Much of the European caricature of Wolfowitz is tripe. They say he is a warmonger (he is not) and a unilateralist (he
is not) and a tool of the Likud party in Israel (he is often quite skeptical of Ariel Sharon and advocated giving the Palestinians a state when that view was considered radical). But the AFP gets it right. Wolfowitz, like the president who appointed him, is an unapologetic proponent of "liberal democracy and free-market economics," and he would most certainly like to see both "take root around the world." (That so many Europeans apparently find this objectionable says far more about them than it does about Wolfowitz.)
Other critics suggest that Wolfowitz will have to curb his appetite for democratization in favor of an emphasis on economic liberalization--that his new job will be something of a departure for a man who for decades has been a strong proponent of democratization. It's a distinction Wolfowitz rejects. "I believe as a general tendency that economic development and political development support each other," he said in an interview Friday. "It's easier to support democratic institutions when economies are free, but I don't buy the Fareed Zakaria idea that poor people can't support democracies. The Indonesians are proving him wrong right now."
If Wolfowitz's views are unpopular in European liberal democracies, they have supporters in countries that aspire to become liberal democracies. Take Lebanon. Wolfowitz has spent much time lately visiting with Lebanese leaders and reformers in the United States. His week began with a memorial service to honor former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri at Georgetown University. (James Wolfensohn, the current World Bank president, was seated next to him during the service. They chatted briefly but did not discuss Wolfowitz's pending appointment, then still four days off.) According to several people at the service, a throng of Lebanese Christians (and some Muslims) gathered around Wolfowitz to thank him for pushing reform in the Middle East. The scene caused Farid Abboud, the Syrian-backed Lebanese ambassador to the United States, to mutter, "Who does he think he is, the patriarch?"
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