CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — With the International Monetary Fund playing a central role in the euro zone's blueprint for a bailout of Greece, the multilateral lender has come full circle. In its early days after World War II, the IMF's central task was to help Europe emerge from the ravages of the war. Once upon a time, the IMF had scores of programs across the Continent (as Rong Qian, Carmen Reinhart and I illustrate in new research on "graduation" from sovereign debt crises.) But, until the financial crisis, most Europeans assumed they were now far too wealthy to ever face the humiliation of asking the IMF for financial assistance.

Welcome to the new era. Europe has become ground zero for the biggest expansion of IMF lending and influence in years. Several large Eastern European countries, including Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine, already have substantial IMF loan programs. Now, the euro-zone countries have agreed that the IMF can come into Greece and, presumably, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland if needed.

The IMF's resurgence over the past year is breathtaking. Castrated by populist rhetoric during the Asian debt crisis of the late 1990s, the IMF had been struggling to re-anchor its policies and rebuild its image. When France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn took over the helm in the fall of 2007, even poor African countries were shunning the IMF like a leper, preferring to make deals with non-traditional lenders such as China. Absent new business and new revenues, the IMF was facing dire cutbacks to ensure its own survival.