The Next Crusade

[Rasputin]

توني* بلر احتمالاً رييس بانك جهاني مي شود

پس* از يك* ماه* بحران* در بانك* جهاني* و كناره* گيري* پل* ولفوويتز از رياست* اين* بانك** گفته* مي* شود توني* بلر*نخست* وزير كنوني* انگليس* بيشترين* شانس* را براي* احراز اين* سمت* دارد* .

به* گزارش* شبكه* تلويزيوني* يورونيوز*بسياري* از كارشناسان* و اقتصاد دانان* بانك* جهاني* پيشنهاد داده* اند توني* بلر كه* در حال* كناره* گيري* از نخست* وزيري* انگليس* است** به* عنوان* رئيس* بانك* جهاني* و جانشين* پل* ولفوويتز انتخاب* شود* .

از انجا كه* دولت* امريكا بيشترين* كمك* مالي* را به* بانك* جهاني* ارائه* مي* دهد و داراي* بيشترين* سهام* در اين* نهاد مالي* است* به* طور سنتي* رياست* ان* از سوي* دولت* امريكا و از ميان* شهروندان* امريكايي* انتخاب* مي* شود * .

چندي* پيش* كميته* تحقيق* بانك* جهاني* در گزارش* اخير خود از هيئت* مديره* بانك* جهاني* درخواست* كرده* بود صلاحيت* ولفوويتز را براي* ادامه* حضورش* به* عنوان* رئيس* بانك* جهاني* بررسي* كند*وي* سرانجام* به* دليل* موج* شديد اعتراضات* بين* المللي* و داخلي* از سمت* خود كناره* گيري* كرد* .

استعفاي* ولفوويتز با استقبال* بسياري* از كشورهاي* جهان* از جمله* المان* و نروژ همراه* بوده* است** .
پل* وولفويتز دستور داده* بود تا حقوق* يك* كارمند زن* اين* بانك* كه* با او رابطه* عاطفي* داشته* است* * افزايش* يابد* .

گفتني* است* ولفوويتز به* همراه* جرج* بوش* رئيس* جمهور امريكا و كاندوليزا رايس* وزير امور خارجه* اين* كشور يكي* از معماران* جنگ* عراق* بود* .

[Rasputin]

Wolfowitz Resigns, Ending Long Fight at World Bank

Paul D. Wolfowitz, ending a furor over favoritism that blew up into a global fight over American leadership, announced his resignation as president of the World Bank Thursday evening after the bank’s board accepted his claim that his mistakes at the bank were made in good faith.
The decision came four days after a special investigative committee of the bank concluded that he had violated his contract by breaking ethical and governing rules in arranging the generous pay and promotion package for Shaha Ali Riza, his companion, in 2005.

The resignation, effective June 30, brought a dramatic conclusion to two days of negotiations between Mr. Wolfowitz and the bank board after weeks of turmoil.

“He assured us that he acted ethically and in good faith in what he believed were the best interests of the institution, and we accept that,” said the board’s directors in a statement issued Thursday night. “We also accept that others involved acted ethically and in good faith.”

In the carefully negotiated statement, the bank board praised Mr. Wolfowitz for his two years of service, particularly for his work in arranging debt relief and pressing for more assistance to poor countries, especially in Africa. They also cited Mr. Wolfowitz’s work in combating corruption, his signature issue.

Mr. Wolfowitz said he was grateful for the directors’ decision and, referring to the bank’s mission of helping the world’s poor, added: “Now it is necessary to find a way to move forward. To do that I have concluded that it is in the best interests of those whom this institution serves for that mission to be carried forward under new leadership.”

Mr. Wolfowitz’s negotiated departure averted what threatened to become a bitter rupture between the United States and its economic partners at an institution established after World War II. The World Bank channels $22 billion in loans and grants a year to poor countries.

But he left behind a place that must heal its divisions and overhaul a flawed, cumbersome structure that had allowed the controversy over Mr. Wolfowitz to spread out of control.

People close to the negotiations said that Mr. Wolfowitz had agreed not to make major personnel or policy decisions between now and June 30. Some bank officials said he might go on an administrative leave and cede day-to-day functions to an acting leader, but that might not be decided until Friday.

President Bush earlier in the day praised Mr. Wolfowitz at a news conference but signaled that the end was near by saying he regretted “that it’s come to this.” A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said, “We would have preferred that he stay at the bank, but the president reluctantly accepts his decision.”

More important for the bank’s future, Mr. Fratto said, President Bush will soon announce a candidate to succeed Mr. Wolfowitz, quashing speculation that the United States would end the custom, in effect since the 1940s, of the American president picking the bank president.

Many European officials previously indicated that they would go along with the United States’ picking a successor if Mr. Wolfowitz would resign voluntarily, as he now has.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said Thursday that he would “consult my colleagues around the world” before recommending a choice to Mr. Bush, in what seemed to be an effort to assure allies that the United States would not repeat what happened in 2005 when Mr. Bush surprised them by selecting Mr. Wolfowitz, then a deputy secretary of defense and an architect of the Iraq war.

Leaders of Germany and France objected but decided not to make a fight over the choice and risk reopening wounds from their opposition to the war two years earlier. Some also argued that Mr. Wolfowitz, as a conservative seeking to write a new chapter in a career that had been focused on national security, might bring new support to aiding the world’s poor.

Soon after Mr. Wolfowitz took office, however, he engaged in fights in various quarters at the bank over issues including his campaign against corruption, in which he suspended aid to several countries without consulting board members, and his reliance on a small group of aides.

Mr. Wolfowitz’s resignation, while ending the turmoil that erupted in early April over the disclosure of his role in arranging Ms. Riza’s pay and promotion package, will not by itself repair the divisions at the bank over his leadership, bank officials said Thursday evening.

[Rasputin]

بوش نامزد ریاست بانک جهانی را معرفی کرد


رابرت زلیک از جمله افراد مورد اعتماد آقای بوش است که در حلقه نومحافظه کاران قرار ندارد
جورج بوش رئیس جمهور ایالات متحده، رابرت زلیک قائم مقام سابق وزارت امور خارجه این کشور را برای ریاست بانک جهانی برگزیده است.
آقای زلیک جایگزین پل ولفوویتز رئیس سابق این بانک می شود که به خاطر جنجال افزایش مزایای دوست دخترش کناره گیری کرده است.

ماموریت آقای ولفووتیز در بانک جهانی در پایان ماه ژوئن تمام می شود.

آقای بوش قرار است چهارشنبه رابرت زلیک را به طور رسمی به عنوان نامزد خود برای ریاست بانک جهانی به هیات حکام این بانک معرفی کند.

آمریکا بزرگترین سهامدار بانک جهانی است و به طور سنتی ریاست این بانک بر عهده یک آمریکایی بوده است.

کارشناسان با اشاره به سابقه آقای زلیک به عنوان قائم مقام سابق وزارت امور خارجه و نماینده تجاری آمریکا و آشنایی او با بسیاری از مقام های بلندپایه بین المللی، پیش بینی می کنند انتخاب آقای بوش به راحتی آرای لازم برای ریاست بانک جهانی را به دست آورد.

آقای زلیک هم اکنون یکی از مدیران ارشد بانک سرمایه گذاری گلدمن ساکس است.

او تابستان سال گذشته از سمت خود در وزارت امورخارجه آمریکا استعفا داد و به رغم نزدیکی به محافل نومحافظه کار، به عنوان عضوی از آنها به شمار نمی رود و نقشی هم در طراحی جنگ عراق نداشته است.

این در حالی است که پیش از این انتصاب آقای ولفوویتز به ریاست بانک جهانی به خاطر سابقه او به عنوان معاون وزارت دفاع آمریکا و نقش او در برنامه ریزی برای حمله به عراق با مخالفت خیلی از کشورهای اروپایی مواجه شده بود.

در این حال، پول ولفوویتز در مصاحبه جدیدی جنجال رسانه ها را عامل استعفای خود دانسته و گفته هیات حکام بانک جهانی تصمیم او برای افزایش حقوق و مزایای دوست دخترش هنگام انتقال از این بانک به وزارت امورخارجه آمریکا را اخلاقی دانسته است.

[Rasputin]

No Blame, No Shame

Why has it become impossible to admit a mistake in Washington and accept the consequences? The last time a senior government official quit over his own job failure was more than twenty years ago, when Robert McFarlane, President Reagan’s national-security adviser, resigned during the Iran-Contra scandal and, taking accountability to a Roman level, swallowed an overdose of Valium, out of “a sense of having failed the country.” (He survived.) Today, this mostly forgotten act of personal responsibility seems rather heroic. Recent years have seen such a steep decline in shame that a book like George Tenet’s “At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA,” for which the author was paid four million dollars, has become an expected destination at the end of a well-trodden path that leads from disaster through obfuscation and defiance to a well-rewarded self-justification.

The Bush Administration has come close to perfecting the art of unaccountability. Tenet’s memoir shows just one of several styles of evasion lately on display: last month, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s admission that mistakes were made in the firing of eight United States attorneys had the air of a schoolboy hoping that bogus contrition would get him off the hook. “I accept full responsibility,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, meaning only that he was sorry he had allowed the matter to become such a nuisance. He spent the next five hours explaining—through repeated memory failure and a steady refusal to acknowledge the contradictions and lies in which he kept entangling himself—why he bore no responsibility for anything else. Afterward, the President praised Gonzales for his “very candid assessment” and said that it “increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.” This is unaccountability as pure chutzpah, and so far it seems to be working.

Paul Wolfowitz, the World Bank president and former Deputy Secretary of Defense, in answering charges that he favored his girlfriend by giving her a promotion and a hefty pay raise at the bank while holding impoverished countries to a high standard of good government, has taken a different approach. Wolfowitz, in his most recent statement, prepared for an investigatory panel, conceded nothing, and denounced a “smear campaign” waged by his enemies inside the bank. “I acted transparently, sought and received guidance from the bank’s ethics committee, and conducted myself in good faith in accordance with that guidance,” he asserted. Assertion is the neoconservative style of avoiding accountability: don’t give an inch or they’ll tear you to pieces. Wolfowitz’s ally Richard Perle once said that to express public doubts about the Iraq war “would be fatal.” And, of course, the World Bank scandal is all about Iraq.

Wolfowitz is as responsible as anyone for that catastrophe, having been nearly perfect in getting every aspect of it wrong. When he left the Pentagon for the World Bank, in 2005, many saw an analogy to the move made by Robert McNamara in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. But McNamara was seeking atonement, while Wolfowitz wanted vindication—further evidence of the diminishing power of disgrace in American politics. Wolfowitz, who continues to enjoy the President’s full support, has never uttered any serious self-criticism about the war. Like Al Capone, who was nailed on tax evasion, and Alberto Gonzales, who as the White House counsel opened the door to torture, Wolfowitz is being hounded for the blunder because he couldn’t be got for the crime. The press is more comfortable with—in fact, is better at—catching important people in fibs and flip-flops than in making independent judgments about something like a war.

George Tenet’s style is more subtle and complex. In his book, not admitting a mistake begins with admitting a mistake, then creating an impression of anguished self-scrutiny, which almost immediately dissolves in a shower of equally anguished claims of mitigating circumstances. Addressing the C.I.A.’s failure to adequately alert the F.B.I. that a known terrorist, soon to be a 9/11 hijacker, had a visa to the United States, Tenet writes, “No excuses. However,” he adds, “overworked men and women who, by their actions, were saving lives around the world all believed the information had been shared with the F.B.I.” It is the same with the slam-dunk quote, with Colin Powell’s C.I.A.-approved speech to the United Nations, with the Medal of Freedom the President gave Tenet: the author agonizes just long enough to absolve himself of real blame. Tenet’s self-defense is that he’s a good-hearted, hardworking guy. And we can only assume from the book’s gentle treatment of Bush that he still has the confidence of the President.

These styles of unaccountability would be private moral failings if the stakes were lower. But under the Bush Administration no senior civilian official or military officer has been held responsible for what will probably turn out to be the greatest foreign-policy disaster in American history. (Donald Rumsfeld was thrown overboard only after he became too much trouble politically.) Those in highest authority have been kept in office (Dick Cheney), promoted (Gonzales, Condoleezza Rice), honored with medals (Tenet, General Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer), or sent off with encomiums (Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld). Generals who held command over chaos and looming defeat have received additional stars and more powerful posts, such as George Casey, Jr., who was promoted earlier this year to Army chief of staff. Recently, an Army lieutenant colonel and Iraq veteran named Paul Yingling published an essay in the Armed Forces Journal, entitled “A Failure in Generalship.” Yingling’s open indictment of a military leadership composed of yes-men was the first by an active-duty officer during the Iraq war, and it expressed in analytical terms a simmering rage among lower-ranking soldiers. “A private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war,” he wrote.

Eventually, war enforces its own accountability—though heads might not roll, bodies will render a final judgment—but the point in punishing failure is to correct mistakes before a war is lost. Bush’s refusal to do so has come at an unimaginably high cost, which will include his own legacy. The most common explanation for this stance is his loyalty to people loyal to him, but folly on this scale is never entirely personal. Bush represents the apotheosis, and perhaps the demise, of politics as war by other means. Bring overwhelming force to the political battlefield without apology, this deluded ideology holds, and reality—even a real war—will take care of itself. ♦

[Rasputin]

انتصاب رابرت زلیک به عنوان رییس بانک جهانی


رابرت زلیک زمانی قائم مقام وزارت امور خارجه آمریکا در امور تجاری بود
هیات مدیره بانک جهانی نامزدی رابرت زلیک را برای به عهده گرفتن ریاست این بانک تایید کرده است.
آقای زلیک که از سوی رئیس جمهور آمریکا نامزد احراز این پست شده بود قبلا قائم مقام وزارت خارجه آمریکا بوده و جانشین پل ولفوویتز می شود که روز 30 ژوئن بانک جهانی را ترک خواهد کرد.

پل ولفوویتز پس از دو سال ریاست بانک جهانی، به خاطر جنجال افزایش مزایای دوست دخترش کناره گیری، کرده است.

آمریکا بزرگترین سهامدار بانک جهانی است و براساس توافقی نانوشته، انتخاب رئیس بانک جهانی به عهده این کشور است و در مقابل اروپایی ها رئیس موسسه موازی آن، صندوق بین المللی پول را برمی گزینند.

نامزدی آقای زلیک روز دوشنبه توسط هیات مدیره 24 نفره بانک جهانی بررسی شد.

با اشاره به سابقه آقای زلیک به عنوان قائم مقام سابق وزارت امور خارجه و نماینده تجاری آمریکا و آشنایی او با بسیاری از مقام های بلندپایه بین المللی، پیش بینی می شد وی به راحتی آرای لازم برای ریاست بانک جهانی را به دست آورد.

آقای زلیک گفت او "مشتاق است با افرادی که دستور کار غلبه بر فقر در کلیه مناطق جهان، با توجه خاص به آفریقا، را جلو می برند ملاقات کند."

وی همچنین گفت او مشتاقانه منتظر پیش بردن برنامه توسعه اجتماعی و اقتصادی، سرمایه گذاری در توسعه، و "تشویق امید، فرصت و سربلندی" مردم است.

وی افزود: "من از عشق کارمندان (بانک جهانی) به این ماموریت آگاهی دارم. و برای کارنامه افتخارآمیز آنها، ادامه تلاش آنها در جستجوی آموزش و بهبود زندگی، و تعهد به کسب نتایج ملموس، احترام زیادی قائلم."

'کارنامه غیرقابل تردید'

دوره ریاست بانک جهانی پنج ساله اما قابل تجدید است.

هیات مدیره بانک جهانی که از قبل پیش بینی می شد نامزدی آقای زلیک را به راحتی تایید کند در بیانیه ای نوشت: "آقای زلیک یک حس رهبری قوی با ویژگی های برتر مدیریتی و کارنامه ای غیرقابل تردید در امور بین المللی و انگیزه لازم برای پیشبرد اعتبار و کارآیی بانک را برای پست ریاست آن به ارمغان خواهد آورد."

هیات مدیره همچنین بر "نقش مهم بانک در رسیدگی به فقر و رشد اقتصادی" تاکید کرد.

آقای زلیک هم اکنون یکی از مدیران ارشد بانک سرمایه گذاری گلدمن ساکس است.

او تابستان سال گذشته از سمت خود در وزارت امورخارجه آمریکا استعفا داد و به رغم نزدیکی به محافل نومحافظه کار، به عنوان عضوی از آنها به شمار نمی رود و نقشی هم در طراحی جنگ عراق نداشته است.

این در حالی است که پیش از این انتصاب آقای ولفوویتز به ریاست بانک جهانی به خاطر سابقه او به عنوان معاون وزارت دفاع آمریکا و نقش او در برنامه ریزی برای حمله به عراق با مخالفت خیلی از کشورهای اروپایی مواجه شده بود.

در این حال، پول ولفوویتز در مصاحبه جدیدی جنجال رسانه ها را عامل استعفای خود دانسته و گفته هیات حکام بانک جهانی تصمیم او برای افزایش حقوق و مزایای دوست دخترش هنگام انتقال از این بانک به وزارت امورخارجه آمریکا را اخلاقی دانسته است.

[Rasputin]

Bankrolling Iran

Both the U.N. Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency have found Iran in breach of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The IAEA reports that Iran ignored the Security Council's February deadline to stop enriching uranium and has even expanded its nuclear program.

As Iran's Atomic Energy Organization moves toward its announced goal of operating 50,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in Natanz, the World Bank is funding nine government projects in Iran totaling $1.35 billion -- one of which operates in Isfahan, where Iran's nuclear program is headquartered.

While the World Bank is part of the U.N. family, the bank's board is disconnected from the policies of key U.N. agencies -- especially the Security Council and the IAEA. The United States remains the top investor in the World Bank, contributing $950 million in 2006 and $940 million this year. In June the House of Representatives approved another $950 million. Meanwhile, the bank will disburse $220 million to Iran this year, with more than $870 million in the pipeline for 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush all certified that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. The Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence spends considerable effort locating Iranian assets to freeze.

Yet published World Bank documents reflect a worldview toward Iran that is backward, uneducated and outdated. All current projects in Iran are based on a 2001 Interim Assistance Strategy, in which the bank wrote:

"There is a relatively animated and active political competition in Iran through which people express their views, choice of society, economic aspirations and political representation. . . . Since the 1979 Revolution, Iran has given strong and special emphasis to human development, social protection, and 'social justice,' with significant progress to date."

Freedom House, the global leader in assessing personal and political freedoms, had a different perspective in its 2006 Freedom in the World report:

"Iranians cannot change their government democratically. . . . Corruption is pervasive. . . . Freedom of expression is limited. . . . Religious freedom is limited. . . . Academic freedom in Iran is limited. . . . Although the constitution prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, these practices are very common and increasingly routine."

The 2001 bank document notes that Iran has begun "an era of détente and greater openness to the outside world." The Security Council and the IAEA appear to disagree with that assessment.

One has to wonder why a country that exports 2.6 million barrels of oil a day needs World Bank development assistance. Iran's oil export revenue nearly doubled between 2003 and 2005, from $23.7 billion to $46.6 billion. That number grew to $50 billion last year. Iran's real gross domestic product grew 4.8 percent in 2004 and 5.6 percent in 2005. Why does Iran need World Bank aid?

Furthermore, the bank's investment in Iran stands in stark contrast to its work in Iraq. Iraq was a founding member of the World Bank in 1945, yet it took the bank 2 1/2 years after the fall of Saddam Hussein to approve one development project. To date, the board has approved only four projects, totaling $399 million, for the new Iraqi government -- and little of that money has been spent.

The World Bank's board is not only disconnected from the Security Council's policies but is also at odds with the Iran policies of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

As the Treasury acts to dry up funding for Tehran, the World Bank is providing support to the Iranian government through 2010. As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledges the destruction of Israel, funds Hezbollah and Hamas, and defies Security Council resolutions, the bank's board will approve further Iran disbursements. U.S. law requires the American executive director at the bank to vote against any project for the Iranian government. However, since the United States has no veto power on the bank's board, this policy is largely symbolic. We need to do better.

This summer the bank has gotten a president who works well with allies -- former deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick. It would be prudent for Zoellick to realign the bank's policies with Security Council resolutions on Iran. As long as the Security Council condemns the actions of Ahmadinejad, the World Bank should suspend funding for his government.

Multilateral organizations represent the best and greatest potential for U.S. and allied diplomacy. The success of this diplomacy will be enhanced if the United Nations and World Bank work together, particularly on Iran.

[Rasputin]

Paul D. Wolfowitz, former president of the World Bank, will lead a high-level advisory panel on arms control and disarmament, the State Department said Thursday.

Mr. Wolfowitz, who has close ties to the White House, will become chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, which reports to the secretary of state. The panel is charged with giving independent advice on disarmament, nonproliferation and related subjects.

The portfolio includes commentary on several high-profile issues, including pending nuclear deals with India and North Korea and an offer to negotiate with Iran over its disputed nuclear program.

Mr. Wolfowitz was replaced as World Bank chief last June after a stormy two-year tenure. He is now a defense and foreign policy studies expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington research organization.