OP-ED: "The World Bank, Stuck in the Mud," by Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post, 13 April 2007, p. A17.

Great piece.

Begins by noting how Bush has wasted a lot of great opportunity:

After Sept. 11, the world launched the Doha round of trade talks, which was supposed to help developing countries; now Doha has fizzled. After Sept. 11, there was hope for more humanitarian interventions; now the Iraq syndrome undermines the Western will to intervene, even in the extreme case of Darfur. The most lasting impact of Sept. 11 on the West's attitude toward development is perhaps a negative one. Opponents of immigration have been handed a convenient argument, with the result that workers from poor countries may have fewer legal opportunities to earn paychecks in rich countries and send money home.

Then there is the aid story [goes on to talk about how the G-8 promises at Gleneagles haven't been met].

The West's financial retreat is a policy retreat, too, because an alternative patron of poor nations is emerging in the form of China ... [and] China cares little for controlling corruption.

Indeed.

So Wolfowitz is mired in personal scandal and the WB is thus sidelined.

Terrible timing for the Gap, more evidence of Bush's early post-presidency--by extension.

An America that cares in pol-mil terms, combined with a China willing to invest, and you almost have a full-service, principled superpower for the Gap.

But when we opt out or let ourselves get bogged down in Iraq in our go-it-our-own-way-ism, it's just China's mercantilism and the West's moral outrage.

My, what a useless combination.