THE GUARDIAN’S SUBSIDY BLOG is deeply pessimistic:

Even before the talks have got underway plans are in place for another unscheduled ministerial meeting early next year. If this is a meeting to build on what is agreed at Cancun no one would argue. But if, as reporter Nick Mathiason suggests it is because ministers have already accepted that agreement won’t be reached this week then it is absolutely shameful. . . .

The progress of the negotiations hasn’t been helped by the astonishing remarks last week of Franz Fischler, the EU agriculture commissioner who dismissed calls by developing countries for big cuts in subsidies as cheap propaganda and said that Brussels would strongly defend its farmers. Isn’t there anyone out there big enough to rescue these talks from the trough into which they are falling?

I don’t think it will be Bush, who — partly because folks like The Guardian have been demanding it — is likely to have to give the French et al., something (like continued agricultural protection) in order to get a UN imprimatur for the rebuilding of Iraq whose chief value is to impress people who listen to The Guardian about such things.