Pres Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan comes to DC

The problem with some of the world's best newspapers lies in their pay-to-read online commentary or Op-Ed pieces. A prime example is how the Financial Times buries its sometimes brilliant editorial content in pay-per-view slots. Today's less-than-insightful comments by Philip Stephans on the next visit of a head of state to DC, President Ilham Aliyev, to meet GWB at the White House, however, do not reach the FT's usual level of excellence.

I was one of the control officers at Amoco Corporation's HQ in the Standard Oil Building in Chicago when Ilham came through town in 1995 during negotiations over the pipeline from Baku to the Mediterranean. For about three hours, there was a hole in his schedule and he and I simply hung out in the Amoco Boardroom and then walked down to the Loop for a short time. He was modest, unassuming, and gracious; very unlike his father Heydar whom I met only once, but had an overpowering aura of authority and Soviet brutality about him.

Stephens points out that Azerbaijan has lots of oil, a recently-completed pipeline to the West, and is a strategic geographic keystone to the troubled areas of the region---Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and the Caucasus.

Stephens unaccountably praises Aliyev fils for his pro-Western attitude, but turns up his nose at the sins of omission supposedly committed in the recent elections, which then, of course, gets laid like everything else nowadays at Bush's door as Bush's fault. Stephens then claims, without going through the drudgery of pointing them out, that there are many ways Washington could pressure the Azeris to reform.

Stephens mentions the clannish nature of Azeri politics, but doesn't mention the on-again, off-again hostilities with neighboring Armenia, nor does he mention Vladimir Putin's desire to overturn the Azeri policy toward Washington, nor does he mention a huge number of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh that still remain unhoused.

But this FT philosopher does point out that Azerbaijan is one of "the easiest cases" to push for reform.

I'm sure Condi and the NSC Advisor would love to hear Mr. Stephens' suggestions in detail in camera, since he hasn't shared them with his reading audience.