Paul Wolfowitz’s enemies have claimed his scalp, forcing him to step down as president of the World Bank – even as the venerable institution’s board said it accepted his insistence that he’d acted “ethically and in good faith.”
In retrospect, it seems clear that Wolfowitz wasn’t forced out for his alleged indiscretion – arranging a hefty promotion and pay raise for his girlfriend.
Instead, his real “crime” was that he came to the bank after serving as Donald Rumsfeld’s No. 2 at the Pentagon – where he was a key architect of the Iraq war.
That, and his insistence on openly fighting corruption within the bank and its aid recipients – a goal that was decidedly unwelcome to the entrenched bureaucracy of the supposed poverty-fighting institution.
Indeed, Wolfowitz’s resignation under pressure seems much like the forced withdrawal of another outspoken Bush administration official, John Bolton, from his post as ambassador to the U.N.
Both men refused to play the usual diplomatic games. Each made it his top priority to address the institutional rot of the organization to which he’d been appointed, thus riling up the long-comfortable powers that be. And both now have paid a price for refusing to let sleeping dogs lie – or corrupt institutions practice business as usual.
Yet both performed a signal service – shining an unwelcome spotlight on institutions that can only benefit from a healthy dose of public attention.
The White House says it will move swiftly to name a successor to Wolfowitz. Among those being mentioned is former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, whose blistering report on the scandal-scarred oil-for-food program exposed the United Nations’ inherent corruption.
Whoever gets the nod, however, must commit to continuing Wolfowitz’s anti-corruption campaign.
Otherwise, the bad guys will have won a total victory.