A better class of global villain

With the way the White House is trying to argue there is a seamless web of international terrorism (Saddam, 9-11, Hezbollah, Hamas), we fear that they view their adversary as being like SPECTRE from the Bond movies: Osama, Saddam, various Saudi princes, Jacques Chirac, and Yassir Arafat all getting together for meetings in a Bauhaus-furnished lair with a mysterious Nehru-suited chairman behind a screen with a white cat in his lap. The truth is much closer to there being a bunch of disconnected bad guys operating out of caves and squabbling over expenses. And definitely with no sense of style.

Not that we want a supervillian of any sort, but in reading the financial pages today, we were struck by the possibilities presented by this story from the Wall Street Journal:

The takeover saga of Cordiant Communications Group [troubled UK advertising firm] took another turn Tuesday after a mysterious Paris-based chess patroness increased her stake in Cordiant to nearly 11% from 2%.

Cordiant, whose board has recommended a proposed takeover by fellow British advertising holding company WPP Group, said late Tuesday that it had received a letter from lawyers for Nahed Ojjeh saying that as of Friday, Ms. Ojjeh owned a roughly 10.75% stake in Cordiant.

Ms. Ojjeh is a Paris-based chess patroness, and daughter of the Syrian defense minister, who surfaced last week as the owner of a 2% stake in Cordiant. Ms. Ojjeh couldn't be reached to comment and her intentions couldn't be learned.

This profile seems to mingle the plots of so many Bond villains: the obscure sporting interest, the sudden rise to prominence in a financial deal, the intriguing background -- want to bet that there are multiple intelligence agency files on the wealthy daughter of the Syrian defense minister? Of course the truth is undoubtedly more prosaic: she's just a member of the educated Arab elite, with a ton of money. And how evil can a chess patroness be?