Just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong in the run-up to the global trade talks that began yesterday in this Persian Gulf nation.
Now, the ministers from some 140 countries gathering here, in what the Bush administration considers a test of Washington's leadership in the war on terrorism, risk failing a second time to agree on an agenda for writing new rules governing global trade.
Success at the talks "is within our grasp," said Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, who has made this meeting the focus of his first 10 months in office. "But," he said, "there's lots of hard work to do if we're going to get there."
A setback could send shock waves through the recessionary global economy and imperil the umbrella WTO, which was created six years ago to expand trade and regulate conflicts.
With five days of bargaining scheduled, trade officials are still deadlocked on several core issues -- farm trade, anti-dumping rules and textiles -- that top the agenda for the poorest countries and split the industrialized nations.
Negotiators also have to resolve a few new and highly politicized disputes, such as whether patent rules deny affordable medicine to nations facing health crises.
Murphy's Law seems to have plagued the trade talks in recent years. Two years ago in Seattle -- the last time officials tried to initiate what they refer to as a new round of trade negotiations -- the attempt failed in spectacular fashion. It was a showcase not for free trade but for groups protesting globalization.
Protesters are few in this tiny, oil-rich emirate, the only nation to offer itself as a host after downtown Seattle was ransacked during the 1999 gathering. But after Sept. 11, a painful security headache arose as the threat of terrorism against a conspicuous gathering in the Middle East forced the US and most other nations to send only skeleton negotiating teams.
Hotels here are swarming with security agents carrying walkie-talkies.
On Wednesday, before most delegates had arrived, a gunman was killed after he opened fire on US and Qatari troops guarding an air base about 30km southwest of Doha that was being used by US military aircraft. Officials said there was no evidence connecting the attack to the meeting and called it an isolated incident.
Despite or perhaps even because of the terrorist threat, US President George W. Bush and Zoellick made the talks a test of leadership. They say a successful outcome would show that Osama bin Laden had not succeeded in disrupting an open and interconnected world. Zoellick called the talks a mission to "counter the revulsive destructionism of terrorism."
Also, the world's major economies are experiencing a downturn this year, the first time they have retreated in tandem since the oil shocks of the mid-1970s.
The World Bank predicts that trade among nations will increase at an anemic rate of 1 percent this year after soaring 12 percent last year.
Individual interests
Yet while the need to stimulate overall trade is pressing, major industrialized and poor nations are trying to dictate the terms of these talks in ways that suit their individual interests. Even the strongest supporters of a new round, the US and the EU, are prepared to walk away if the agenda impinges too much on powerful domestic groups.
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