President Bush has nominated Robert B. Zoellick, former deputy secretary of state, to head the World Bank after a favoritism scandal forced out Paul Wolfowitz. Zoellick is a Goldman Sachs executive. It is the president of the United States who nominates the World Bank president – and the post is always given to an American – but any nomination is a mere formality. The bank’s executive board will appoint Zoellick just as it appoints (i.e., rubber stamps) every other nominee.
The question is why this should be the case. Why should the president of the United States be the one to fill the position with his own nominee? Why should the post always go to an American? Why, more specifically, should the position always go to a supporter of the president?
Well, of course, because the World Bank is an instrument of American global hegemony. It always has been. That was the original intent, and nothing has changed. But this has got to change. China, India, Russia, Brazil, along with others, are right to call for a new and open process to nominate World Bank president. But the U.S. will refuse. Why would it agree to have its hegemonic position weakened?
People seem to be happy with Zoellick’s nomination. He’s no Wolfowitz. After all, anyone would have been an improvement over the outgoing president. And is there good reason for them to be happy? Perhaps. He has already presented himself as an internationalist. An American internationalist, but still. Even the Europeans seem to like him.
But let’s not give him a free pass. He’s a Wall Street insider whose emphasis may turn out to be on maximising Wall Street profits. And there is more. He may be presenting himself as an internationalist, and he may be receiving a warm welcome because he is not Wolfowitz, but, like Wolfowitz, he’s a committed neoconservative.
He was, for example, one of the signatories to an infamous letter from the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) to former US President Clinton calling for ‘the removal of Saddam Hussein from power’ and for ‘American global hegemony’. The other signatories included neoconservatives Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Richard Perle, and, of course, Paul Wolfowitz. Indeed, though he may very well be more of an internationalist than some of his nationalist neocon brethren, he has long been an enthusiastic supporter of the neocon movement and of Bush’s foreign policy, including the Iraq War and the war on terror.
What this means is that whatever his commitment to international development, which may be genuine, it is likely that Zoellick will use his position as World Bank president to advance what he perceives to be American national self-interest. Like other neocons, he is first and foremost an American nationalist who believes in American exceptionalism and in American global hegemony. The neocons like to think of such hegemony as benevolent, but much of the rest of the world know that this is a sham.
In many important ways Zoellick is just like Wolfowitz. And that should be of serious concern to everyone who desires a global community that is not subservient to American hegemony.
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