Two controversial nominations have raised questions about U.S. President George W. Bush's intentions in his second term. Mr. Bush had pledged to put a renewed emphasis on diplomacy and to rebuild damaged relations with friends and allied nations. Yet the naming of Mr. Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank and Mr. John Bolton as U.S. representative to the United Nations has alarmed many. Their supporters argue that concern is overblown and these men, though controversial, may yet engage the U.S. in multilateral diplomacy in new ways. The world will be watching closely to see which interpretation is correct.
Mr. Wolfowitz is best known as the intellectual light behind the invasion of Iraq, which he helped direct as number two in the Department of Defense. His judgments -- or misjudgments -- are in many ways responsible for the current situation in Iraq. He publicly dismissed the idea that a larger invasion force was needed and asserted that U.S. soldiers would be greeted as liberators. He has pushed the notion that the Middle East is ripe for "democratic dominoes" and conceded in an interview that the charge that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was merely the best rationale for mobilizing the bureaucracy and selling the invasion.
The move across the Potomac River from the Pentagon to the World Bank is not unprecedented. Mr. Robert McNamara did it after an equally contentious tenure at the Department of Defense during which he oversaw the war in Vietnam. Running the huge Pentagon bureaucracy is good training for managing the World Bank, one of the world's largest institutions. Mr. Wolfowitz also served as ambassador in Indonesia, and was by virtually all accounts a success, sensitive to local concerns and the development issues that dominate policy in that sprawling archipelago.