Bob Zoellick's Global Listening Tour: US Government Would Not Help on Plane
This afternoon, World Bank President nominee Robert Zoellick departed on a grueling two-week long "global listening tour" to check in with key stakeholders and clients of the Bank.
Zoellick is hitting Africa first -- before Europe. The first trip defines much of the mission. He is going to Ghana, which chairs the Africa Union now. He then goes to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which is the official headquarters of the Africa Union.
Then, Bob Zoellick will travel to South Africa; then up to London, Paris, Berlin, and Oslo.
While Norway is not part of the European Union -- in Zoellick's estimation, Norway is hitting way above its weight in Bank matters. Then before the trip is over, he will jump continents to Mexico City and Brasilia.
Sources report to TWN that the travel agenda and listening tour Zoellick has embarked upon would have been completely global if the U.S. government had sprung for a plane -- but it seems that the U.S. government may be skittish about doing too many favors for the next World Bank president given the trouble that Paul Wolfowitz got in for getting employment favors and help from the Pentagon and State Department for his girlfriend. (actually I have no idea why the USG wouldn't help out with a requested plane -- but my speculation seems reasonable I think)
Ding Dong. . .Note to US government -- helping Bob Zoellick accomplish his "actual mission" and help connect with key stakeholders around the world is not an inappropriate exercise to support. The USG should have lent the Bank a plane for this important trust-revitalization effort. That's the least we could have done for the length of time we stretched out the Wolfowitz ordeal.
Bob Zoellick nonetheless is reaching out to think tank players in DC and around the world to help him build support networks that feed him advice and counsel. I know some of the players, and they are first rate and would impress World Bank professionals.
In my view, he has committed to a whirlwind, minimal sleep exercise (five nights of sleeping on planes) to "show respect" to Bank stakeholders as well as to get the "healing process" underway inside the Bank, and outside.
My only concern about Zoellick's first steps is that he may be trying to do too much, too fast. His appointment will most likely come through near the end of this month -- after ratification by the World Bank board of directors. And his bridge-building and "listening sessions" are exactly what is needed at this time.
But Zoellick -- who was Senior Co-Captain of Swarthmore College's cross country team -- knows the difference between sprints and long-distance running. He's at the start of a marathon, and while he may want to make some early moves to establish the crowd's confidence in him -- he can't be the rabbit in this race. He needs to plan for a long haul.
There is a lot of inaccurate speculation in the blogosphere that Bob Zoellick is another neoconservative following in the footsteps of Paul Wolfowitz. This simply is not the case. The evidence that some critics provide is that Bob Zoellick signed a 1998 PNAC letter advocating war against Iraq. The truth is that Zoellick is a pragmatist in policy affairs and well known to be one of the best and brightest of the James Baker crop of political practitioners.
Roughly half of PNAC's letters dealt with the Middle East broadly -- and focused particularly on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The other half focused on China and standing by the Taiwanese in their incremental push for independence from the mainland. Zoellick is a realist on China -- and is author of the "China as global stakeholder" template for talking about China's rise and the terms of its international engagement. This is completely antithetical from PNAC and neoconservative views.
I have learned that Bob Zoellick has met all of the Bank's executive directors -- or just nearly all of them already.
Folks are scrambling to know more about him, his management style, and his ideas. One of the other interesting tidbits I picked up today in trying to learn his views on climate change is that Zoellick was one of the "heroes" who got the US government to sign on to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Zoellick headed the US effort and was the guide for EPA Administrator William Reilly through that effort.
Today, I have spoken with a number of environmental leaders at organizations such as the World Resources Institute who have said that Zoellick has been actively engaged with them -- from the early 1990s up til now. I was surprised to learn this given the general hostility of the Bush administration to environmental friendly and climate change oriented policies.
In any case, I still have a number of emails from World Bank staff members -- some who were involved in the insurrection against Paul Wolfowitz -- who are worried about Zoellick.
I remember the first tremors I heard about Wolfowitz's internal decisions in the Bank which preceded much of the mainstream furor that later followed. In January 2006, I actually broke the story of Wolfowitz pushing his cronies, Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems, which the Financial Times and Washington Post later turned into major stories.
Zoellick is under the watchful eye of many now -- in ways that Wolfowitz was not, particularly 18 months ago when I started digging into Wolfowitz's decisions on bank management and projects. He is one of the smartest policy players in Washington, in my view, and will work quite vigorously to start out on the right track -- and then will hopefully keep going.
More later -- but wanted to get the word out on Zoellick and his global "listening" and "show the world respect" trip.
-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
Is that all the evidence that Zoellick is a Neo-Conservative imperialist, how absurd? It's obvious Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, and R. James Woolsey tricked him into signing that radical opportunistic Neo-Conservative statement and prime piece of war mongering. What we have here is obviously a man too damned gullible to be a World Bank president. You have any prime Florida beachfront property for sale as well?
The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Gen. Omar Bradley
June 5, 2007 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
He's not in a position at WTO to commence military conquest anyhow, whether he is pragmatic or neocon, but neither at WTO was Wolfie. The point is a red herring, even if Steve himself raises it. The real issue is that Steve is again sucking up to the right.
As our paper of record put it, this man has an "agenda." And what it turns out to be is a "reform" that amounts to removing opposition to radical free-market ideology imposed on the WTO and those to whom it lends. Pragmatism is supopsed to be about facts, maybe even moderate or mildly left of center progress, not about an insane libertarism or "realist" school alternative to the Neocons. Thanks, Steve. I know the right appreciates your support, and I know it's important to you to feel it.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 5, 2007 6:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps his appointment is the lesser of the many evils the administration can inflict. Then again, maybe it was planned as such. I wonder if the Bill Frist rumor was an intentional strategem to blunt criticism of Zoellick: "Here's a completely unacceptable and horrific nominee...just kidding...we nominate Zoellick instead...aren't you happy it's not Frist?"
The letter is disturbing, and the fellow signatories do not inspire any confidence. Perhaps is was a mistake, which then lends support for BVZ's assertion that such a lapse in judgment is just as damning as being a neocon.
The horse is out of the barn, so all we can do is wait and see. At least the previous act has focused the microscope on this new player. I'm disinclined to give props for a quickly world tour meet and greet. You don't need to be a Baker Boy genius to realize such a tour is necessary. "Let's see, should I keep my golf date with Dick Cheney, or should I try to reduce the pressure on my new appointment by visiting my new bosses on their own turf? Hmmmm, Dick's a pretty good player and a lot of fun, but Paul really pissed a lot of these goons off, and it sure would make life easier if I didn't have to get boo'd off stage at my first townhall meeting..."
Finally, I wonder whether the aircraft story is just a diversion. The echo chamber is now differentiating Zoellick from the administration. Sure they hired him, but they wouldn't even give him a government plane, so obviously he is his own man. Next I suppose we'll hear stories of how Zoellick has to darns his own socks because the admin won't flip the bill for some gold toes, and just so we don't confuse him with his predecessor.
/c
June 5, 2007 6:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Armitage was described as pragmatist, which meant that it was surprising that it was him who outed Valerie Plame. To me, it meant that Armitage was a semi-covert neo-con: not exactly hiding, but conveniently "moderate".
Zoellick is probably in the same mold. This means that he will support neo-con plans but without flamboyant arogance of Wolfowitz. Which is a progress of sorts.
June 5, 2007 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Spooky, too, to hear of another "listening tour." The last (and perhaps first) time I heard the term, it was from Senator Clinton, perhaps the most packaged candidate and the one with the greatest resistance to being challenged. Do I hear double-speak again?
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 5, 2007 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
The magical listening tour is waiting to take you away...
Sorry, I have no sense of humor.
June 5, 2007 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
You mention Zoellick's 1998 PNAC letter advocating the Iraq invasion and disaster. Then you state he is not a neoconservative but a pragmatist. What you leave out is the path and the thinking that leads him from pragmatism/realism to support such an egregious, odious policy. (Maybe our quarrel is not just with neoconservatives.) Were the other signatories of this letter also realist/pragmatists? Let's see: Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Robert B. Zoellick.
It sure sounds like a pack of wild pragmatists. And smart as you say. Why he had Bush's unerring foreign policy instincts BEFORE Bush did.
June 5, 2007 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Trade negotiations are the sausage factory of the free trade, and have very little to do with "libertarian ideas". Thus by his former occupation Zoellick is presumed to be modearate, or "real-politik".
June 5, 2007 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Were the other signatories of this letter also realist/pragmatists?" Actually, Steve has already singled out some of them, including Bolton and Kagan, as among the new progressive Republicans. I'm almost relieved our army is exhausted and stretched thin, which doesn't bode well for national security, does it, but then I don't appreciate the true benefits of a war economy.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 5, 2007 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the World Bank has enough money to charter an appropriately sized airplane for this purpose. They would have had to reimburse the US government anyway for use of a military airplane.
June 5, 2007 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe you're way off the mark with Armitage. He is not a NeoCon. A better description would be NeanderthalCon. Armitage's dislike for many of the NeoCons, as well as their taking aim at him goes back to the beginning of the Reagan Administration. First a quick prep though.
In 1979, an Assistant Attorney General recommended that a Grand Jury be convened to decide whether to indict Dr. Stephen Bryen, who was at that time working for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee refused requests by the DoJ for access to files essential to investigate the allegations further, and the Grand Jury was never empaneled. The controversy still forced Byren to resign from his position with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whereupon he was immediately employed by The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and occasionally moonlighted as an AIPAC consultant.
In 1981, Reagan appointed as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, Richard Perle. Perle immediately pressured to get Byren a security clearance. It took six months, and subsequently Byren became Perle's assistant. In 1988, Perle and Byren attempted an end-around a technology ban so that new radar enhancing microwave advances could be exported to Israel. To this end they singled out just the Navy tech transfer official, Richard Levine. Policy was that several more agencies should have been informed into the decision making loop: International Security Affairs (ISA), The Defense Security Assistance Agency (DSAA), and the Technology Transfer Officials from both the Army and Air Force.
Before the public was aware that Armitage had been a Plame leaker, Michael Ledeen, doing his patented responsibility cut-n-runaway, was laying down obfuscating fire in a National Review Op/Ed, much of it aimed directly at Armitage:
Michael Ledeen, "Iran-Contra Revisited? Our dangerous Iran policy continues", National Review, August 14, 2003
Early in 2004, Armitage's testimony in front of the 911 commission had contradicted Rice's, and the Clarke testimony had begun to cause damage. A DoD official left his talking points notes at a D.C. Starbucks meant to prep Rumsfeld for sunday morning talking head news programs. It was discovered by an employee, who gave them to the Center for American Progress, whereupon they were made public. One of the talking points in the brief was that:
In July 2004, Armitage was being floated as a possible replacement for Tenet at the CIA. it was opposed by the NeoCons:
In 2005 several instances of Armitage and Bolton irritating each other was made public:Armitage isn't a NeoCon. He is a Powell loyalist who had no business being a top-level diplomat, and someone who talks too much. When he talked to Novak about Plame, it was the first time they'd ever met, and that was at the insistence of a long time GOP fund raiser. No one ever dug into this, as far as I am aware. Armitage, upon realising that he was the leaker, immediately went to the DoJ, and confessed. he co-operated with the Plame investigation without ever having an attorney at his side, or forcing Fitzgerald to get a subpoena. That's accepting responsibility for your actions, which is a trait that NeoCons and contemporary conservatives do not possess.
Also, I was not appalled, but amused that his diplomatic method of acquiring Pakistan's assistance for the Afghanistan invasion was to drag Musharraf's ass over the burning coals. Pakistan isn't an ally in Mr. Bush's GWOT, they're a bloody 'effing cause.
What happened with Armitage is that the NeoCons worked both sides of the Political BiPolarity into a foaming madness about him, while they skated away from responsibility, Scooter Libby notwithstanding. The left and the right got punked by the Trotskyites. How many more times are they going to get away with this crap?
June 10, 2007 5:53 AM | Reply | Permalink