DATELINE: Boscobel WI, 25 July 2006
Noticed the nice article on the subject this morn in WSJ. Clipped it while watching end of Vol. 5 of the Beatles Anthology (worked out during first 50 mins), and had planned to blog it from home.
But then I got caught up in Enterra end-of-month paperwork and finishing my column (something along the lines of "Resetting the Rules on the Long War").
The WSJ piece is a good summary. Other rounds (Tokyo, Uruguay) full of "collapses" and both went closer to a decade than the planned period of just a few years, so no big surprises on this one.
Why fail?
The Doha Round was the promised give from the Old Core on ag subs in exchange for reducing tariffs on industrial goods in New Core and Gap. Gap basically ready, New Core (India and China especially) less so, and Old Core very stubborn (will no one rid us of this man, Chirac?). Only US mistake? Waiting on the compromise from the Euros. We should have just made our deal and left them out to dry. But I guess we need them in the Middle East more now, so...
Gist of article, then, is that this goal was too ambitious and offered too quickly in aftermath of 9/11. Too bad if true, because the instinct was right. As I always say on 9/11: it had nothing to do with U.S. Rather, like all feedback, it was about the giver, not the target. The right instinct was to say to Gap, "I feel your pain" and then do a bunch of things about it (imagine Bob Rubin still as SECTREAS!). This was a good stab at that, and a rare one from the Bush crowd. It was the right thing to do, if only to isolate the French on this issue. That dam will break soon enough, as Chirac leaves.
But to me, real reason why Doha expectedly slow: global economy doing very well right now, despite the heightened oil prices (which reflect the growth, actually, of the New Core). When global economy hums, it's usually bilats that flow, not regional deals nor multilats, much less global deals. People cut deals when they're desperate, and no one is really desperate right now.
Damn that humming global economy!
Amazing, isn't it? Never more at peace globally than today, and never has the global economy hummed so nicely in a comprehensive manner as right now (global growth very even at 5% in sum).
And yet, all because of Israel into Lebanon it's WWIII and the End Times and "chaos" the world over, according to the editorial boards of the majors.
Good God! As a professional in the biz of watching the world, I find all this pretty decent: Big Bang still getting some play (I mean, at least stuff is moving in the region.) Iraq settling into the reality of a break-up to go with its breakdown. Global economy booming and we're moving closer or no farther away from the key New Core pillars (India, China, Russia, Brazil). I mean, as someone who worries about system-level conflict primarily and accepts the notion that globalization will trigger integrating wars and disintegrating civil strife in its expansionary path, I don't see that much wrong with the world right now.
That's not me offering ass-covering 20/20 on the Big Bang: I always expected it to play out nasty and long. That was never the question. Question was whether we'd start the process with enough force (done) and stick with it (hmmm, depending on how you like George's Big Bang II with Israel providing firepower). But moving this Big Bang is, that much is certain. You may not like the direction, nor the actions triggered, but move it does.
Does it beat the alternative? Almost anything beats the continued stagnation of political-economic evolution in the region.
So, add it all up, and it's a decent world given the continuing tumults caused inside the Gap with globalization's rapid expansion of late. Put in that light, a few extra years on Doha is no big deal.
Would have been weird if it had gone fast.
Monday, July 31, 2006 at 4:01PM 
