■"CAFTA Is a Win-Win," op-ed by Robert B. Zoellick, Washington Post, 24 May 2005, p. A17.

My title has nothing to do with the piece. I just think the world of Bob Zoellick. He's the Bob Rubin of the Bush team. Naturally, he's an acolyte of James Baker.

Bob's just old enough to remember working hard to bring peace to Central America in the late 1980s, and now he wants to take advantage of that relative political quietude to pursue a significant liberalization of trade in the region vis-‡-vis the United States.

Zoellick's main point is that CAFTA's (Central American Free Trade Agreement) opponents are using the old Mexico line from NAFTA: "they're not ready/suited!" He counters with the simple notion that after you create peace, you create prosperity, and after you create prosperity you get political pluralism that's stable. Waiting on that last leg to grant the middle one is completely backasswards.

Besides, if we want stable democracies in the region, the best thing we could do is give up our great love of illegal narcotics. Absent the free trade, this is all we leave them.