Despite my pessimism (cynicism? realism?) about the on-again, off-again negotiations in Zimbabwe, optimism seems to be ruling the day elsewhere. And assuming that the various parties can overcome the remaining sticking points and achieve a meaningful agreement, I will be happy to have been wrong (though I think that my generally skeptical forecast and assessments have been correct all year). But it is all-too-easy to anticipate Robert Mugabe stepping in with more points of disagreement, more concerns, more impediments in the next few days. Perhaps this is Mugabe's FW de Klerk moment. But he has always been more PW Botha to me.
