Revisiting The Gulf

If the fourth WTO ministerial conference actually opens in Doha as scheduled on Friday and ends four days later without a major security incident — without, say, the participants being airlifted to a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf — the delegates will have overcome their easiest hurdle.

Assuming that the World Trade Organizations 142 member nations keep their nerve and that no terrorist threat disrupts the meeting, they will find themselves again ensnared on the same thorny issues that left them bloodied in Seattle in 1999.

What they decide in Qatar,...