Africans for Wolfowitz (WSJ Editorial)

One of the most revealing subplots in the European coup attempt against World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is who is coming to the American's defense. The rich European donor countries want him to resign, while the Africans who are the bank's major clients are encouraging him to stay.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's poorest region, and Mr. Wolfowitz has appropriately made it his top priority. On his first day on the job, he met with a large group of African ambassadors and advocates. His first trip as bank president was a swing through Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. He also recruited two African-born women vice presidents, a rarity at the bank.

If you're surprised by that last fact, then you don't appreciate that the World Bank has always been a sinecure for developed-world politicians. They get handsome salaries, tax free, and their performance is measured not by how much poverty they cure but by how much money they disperse.

Mr. Wolfowitz has upset this sweetheart status quo by focusing more on results, and especially on the corruption that undermines development and squanders foreign aid. Yet many of the poor countries themselves welcome such intervention. At the same April 14 press conference, Zambian Finance Minister N'Gandu Peter Magande endorsed the anticorruption agenda:

The real World Bank scandal is that Mr. Wolfowitz's enemies don't care much about Africa. The French and Brits who want him ousted have never entirely shaken the paternalism they developed during the colonial era. Their real priority is controlling the bank purse-strings and perquisites.

Let's hope the White House doesn't fall for this rot, and, by the way, it's about time Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spent some of his political capital and defended Mr. Wolfowitz. He'd be in good company among Africa's progressive leaders.

I know Mr. Wolfowitz is of mixed popularity here, and the World Bank is of no popularity, but I think this editorial is a good illustration of the reality of Europe's kinder, gentler "Third Way" approach to foreign policy.

Africa's problems can only be solved if the Africans set their own house in order. They cannot be solved by simply pumping money into the pockets of kleptocrats. Wolfowitz is to be commended for supporting those trying to accomplish the former rather than the latter.

If they succeed in forcing him out for it, it's only more evidence that the World Bank is not serious about its own stated mission and is no longer worthy of our support (if it ever was).

We’ve seen this before, haven’t we, in the corporate world: CEO shows weakness, the sharks begin circling, confidence is lost at the lower levels, and it is clear that, sooner or even sooner, the CEO is out of there.

At that point, the CEO typically hires someone like Bob Bennet and starts working for the biggest, fattest severance package he can get. There are always contracts involved (and Wolfowitz negotiated by far the richest contract any World Bank president has ever had) and that gives the guy on the ropes some leverage, with the help of the lawyers, to get a nice goodbye kiss. It’s easier for everyone (excepting the shareholders, and, in this case, the world’s poor) that way.

In my opinion, that’s what is happening here. Wolfowitz is gone. His goal now is to leave with as much of the bank’s cash in hand as possible.

For what it’s worth, the core problem with Wolfowitz is not his last job, not his ideology, not the friends he brought over, and certainly not his girlfriend. It’s that he’s no kind of manager. The World Bank is a big organization, and Wolfowitz in all his jobs has basically been a thinker and academic, not matter how big the title. He has no frigging idea how to lead an organization of thousands of people. His hamhanded responses to what could have been snuffed early (a poorly done and even more poorly advised apology, his failure to paper up the girlfriend deal in a way that gave him a bit of distance, his clueless public reaching out to a staff that was only going to use it as an opportunity to make him look even worse, his dippy “I just read a management book” ideas like offering an hour of open door access every day) are just pathetic and sad proofs that he doesn’t have the skills the job requires. He has never climbed a corporate ladder, has no idea of the traps that can be placed in big organizations, and it shows.

Watch and wait. Wolfowitz gets paid a huge severance. He goes to a think tank, where he does what he does best (write and agitate). Someone else runs the World Bank, and, if the US is lucky, the US comes out of it with its de facto power of appointment still intact.

I think you are all wet.
As I see it staff upset by his cleanup (I believe he had more of them removed for corruption than anyone before him) leaked selective stuff to make him look bad. The Euros who want to get back to business as usual and who hate Bush and this Administration, knew the truth and kept mum.
When the truth came out—that he’s tried to recuse himself from the Riza negotiations, they refused to let him and dictated the terms of her settlement—it turned out that anti-Administration animus, anti-anti corruption efforts, anti-the Administration’s family planning,global warming and Iraq reconstruction funding and the Euros effort to end the US domination of the Bank are what this is really all about.

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