When asked why he had nominated Paul Wolfowitz, a chief architect of the Iraq invasion, as the next president of the World Bank, President Bush pointed out that as deputy defence secretary, Wolfowitz had managed a large organisation. Like the nomination of John Bolton as UN ambassador, the choice of Wolfowitz is a slap at the international community, which widely deplored the invasion and the snubbing of the UN that accompanied it.

There was a time when Wolfowitz might have seemed like a reasonable choice. He served three years as the US ambassador to Indonesia during the Reagan administration. And he was the persuasive communicator who once wrote that the solutions to global conflicts lie in poverty reduction. In so many places in Africa, Asia and Latin America, World Bank projects are where the rubber meets the road: they include such things as building a well in a village in Mali so young girls can spend their mornings in school. Its decisions can mean life or death for hundreds of millions of people. It lends money to cure market failures, financing projects whose returns would not attract other lenders. The World Bank requires a leader with a passion for the job, someone who lives, eats, drinks and sleeps poverty reduction. It is too critical a post to be used by the president to make another triumphalist political point. — The New York Times