5-21-07, 10:44 am

The announcement last Thursday by World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz that he would resign his post effective June 30 came as no surprise to anyone who has been following events surrounding the controversial neo-conservative during the past month or so. Despite frequent support from the Bush administration for the embattled Wolfowitz -- support that had become somewhat muted in the past week or so -- the resignation was an inevitable denouement. After all, in Washington, DC, nothing is more a harbinger of doom for a political appointee than a statement of support.

Wolfowitz's statement announcing his resignation was filled with the expected recitation of his purported accomplishments at the World Bank helm, along with the standard up-front claim that the World Bank's executive directors 'accepted [Wolfowitz's] assurance that I acted ethically and in good faith in what I believed were the best interests of the institution.'

In the world of corporate politics and business, this is also standard. Many times resignations will be tendered contingent on a statement by the Board that the soon-to-be-departed official committed no wrongdoing. Since Washington officials are fond of parsing statements, there is no harm in pointing out that Wolfowitz's statement said the World Bank executive directors 'accepted [his] assurance that [he] acted ethically.' This isn't the same as saying they supported it, or believed it.

The immediate issue that began Wolfowitz's fall concerned allegations he had engineered a raise and transfer for his girlfriend, World Bank employee Shaha Ali Riza, in violation of bank policy. Riza was transferred to a US State Department job with a salary of $194,000 per year. Wolfowitz's lawyer, Bob Bennett, had left the door open for departure if Wolfowitz wasn't singled out for blame, according to a CNN report.

Although the media focused on this single issue with its semi-sordid undertones, most outlets have missed the larger lessons of Wolfowitz's departure from the World Bank. In a very real sense, the rise and fall of Paul Wolfowitz is the story of how neo-conservatives within the Bush administration are reaping the bitter fruits at a banquet featuring wanton pursuit of military intervention in Iraq and the Middle East, followed by a dessert of moral rectitude.

Wolfowitz, 63, established careers at the State and Defense Departments before becoming Deputy Secretary for Defense in 2001. He was in this capacity the second in command under Donald Rumsfeld. In published interviews, he has been an outspoken advocate for the doctrine of preemption; the concept that policy makers need not wait for an actual threat before taking action, but have the duty and obligation to act on perceived threats. The preemption doctrine was the catalyst for the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime.

There is as little basis for the preemption doctrine in international law as there is in US domestic law. During the height of the civil rights struggle of the 1960's, it will be recalled, one municipal law enforcement official was ridiculed by then Senator Robert F. Kennedy for arresting a group of civil rights protesters because the protesters hadn't broken any laws, but 'were ready to break the laws.' This led Kennedy to suggest that 'during the luncheon period may I suggest that...they read the Constitution?'

The influence of Paul Wolfowitz in the pursuit of the US military intervention in Iraq cannot be underestimated. As a passionate advocate of preemption, he bears a major share of responsibility for what has clearly and manifestly become a military quagmire on a scale exceeding that of Vietnam. At least in Vietnam, it can be argued that US policy, as reactionary and ill-advised as it was, had a basis in reality. The Communist Party of Vietnam was building socialism in the northern part of the country, and the National Liberation Front was making consistent gains in the south, where a series of US-supported regimes consistently demonstrated the virtues of ineffectiveness, incompetence and despotism.

In Iraq, by contrast, there were no 'weapons of mass destruction' and no links to Al-Qaeda, as now declassified documents have aptly demonstrated. Now, the story goes, we're in Iraq to restore democracy. We have to rely on our 'commanders in the field,' now that the battle lines have shifted from regime change to civil war. And it is becoming increasingly clear, if it wasn't before, that the US-backed 'government' in Iraq completely lacks legitimacy.

Wolfowitz bears responsibility for much of this courtesy of his stint as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2001-2005. But so does President George W. Bush, whose other title is Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces. Perhaps one of the reasons the name of the late President Harry S. Truman has come up in certain corners these days is because Truman publicly fired General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. Bush, by contrast, chooses to ignore the Constitutional brake on the military that imposes civilian control. And the ultimate established form civilian control is at the ballot box where the overwhelming majority of US voters declared their opposition to the Iraq war in the mid-term elections.

[As an aside, there has only been one US president in the 20th century who had a substantial military career, Dwight Eisenhower, who had the good sense to play a lot of golf during his 1952-60 term of office. Eisenhower also, to his lasting credit, warned of the growth in influence and power of what he termed the 'military industrial complex' in his farewell address. If strategy had been left to the 'commanders' during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962,' who uniformly wanted to bomb Cuba into submission, we probably wouldn't be here today.]

The appointment of Wolfowitz to the leadership of the World Bank continued a pattern of US domination over that institution. Wolfowitz's appointment was regarded by many as a joke at best and part of the usual pattern of things at worst. In the article, 'Wolfowitz at the World Bank: A Perfect Fit,' (Counterpunch, March 17, 2005), writer Jude Wanniski, said it best:

'So you see it doesn't really matter that Wolfowitz doesn't know the first thing about banking or the economics of development projects. He will sit behind the biggest desk at the Bank and take the telephone calls from the Big Banks and the Multinationals, telling him what to do, and providing him with experts like John Perkins, who did the actual dirty work as an economic hit man, and now writes his confessions. When the White House needs a big favor for one of its big hitters, it need only put in a call to Wolfie, who will throw the right switch. That's exactly the way it worked with Jim Wolfensohn these past ten years, and if you don't believe me, look around and you will note how many poor countries got poorer during his reign, and how many big bucks were made at Bechtel and Halliburton.'

Unfortunately for Wolfowitz, as it turned out, he made much sound and fury over the need to eliminate corruption at the World Bank. Then, he got caught arranging a sweetheart deal for his sweetheart. Some might argue that his act wasn't corruption, it was out of love. There is nothing wrong with love, of course, but Wolfowitz may have succeeded in adding a new term to the lexicon: Corrupt love.

The events that overtook Wolfowitz are symptomatic of both an administration and an ideology (neo-conservatism) that have felt themselves not so much above the law as beyond it. Neo-conservatives, who began their journey as part of what has been called the 'anti-Stalinist left,' pursued anti-Communism and Cold War policies with such passion that they followed the logic of their convictions and allied themselves with the right before becoming right-wing themselves. 'Socialists for Nixon,' they were called by Michael Harrington, the late social democratic author and activist. So convinced were they that they had a moral imperative that, over time, they persuaded themselves that they could not possibly do any wrong. This attitude was certainly encapsulated in the trial of I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, and by the actions of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Wolfowitz will no doubt land on his feet. He won't be in need of money and, on the virtually impossible chance that he is, perhaps he can borrow some from his sweetheart. Since Wolfowitz was once a dean at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, perhaps he will find a place in academia. He has a bachelor's degree in mathematics. It might be a good thing for him to teach algebra. And if he does for algebra what he did for foreign policy, he will permanently discredit that discipline for decades to come. Everyone who has ever despised algebra (including yours truly) will owe him the debt of gratitude he doubtless wrongly believes he presently deserves.

--Lawrence Albright is a contributing writer on politics and culture for Political Affairs.