[Mb-civic] Our Latin Conundrum - Jackson Diehl - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Our Latin Conundrum

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, January 2, 2006; A13

Here's a sad but safe new year's prediction: U.S. relations with Latin 
America, which plunged to their lowest point in decades in 2005, will 
get still worse in 2006.

The year ended with a string of reverses. In a regional summit in Mar 
del Plata, Argentina, in November, President Bush was jeered by 
demonstrators and taunted by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who aspires to 
make Latin America anti-American and anti-democratic. He was seconded by 
Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, who in the past few weeks has moved from 
the hemisphere's camp of moderate democratic leftists toward Chavez's 
"revolutionary" embrace.

Then came the Chavez-backed victory in Bolivia of Evo Morales, a former 
llama herder and coca farmer who describes himself as Washington's 
"nightmare." Lacking any coherent policies of his own, Morales will 
probably take instruction from Chavez, Kirchner and Fidel Castro -- who 
at age 79 must believe he is finally seeing the emergence of the 
totalitarian bloc he and Che Guevara tried and failed to create in the 
1960s.

Morales's victory sets the stage for a year in which leftist populists 
will be competing for power in elections across the region, including in 
Peru, Nicaragua and Mexico. All three are among the shrinking cadre of 
U.S. allies; outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox uniquely stood up to 
Chavez during and after Mar del Plata. By the end of this year a Morales 
imitator could be president of Peru, Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista 
movement could once again control Nicaragua, and Mexico could be led by 
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a socialist who has never visited the 
United States.

There are other scenarios: Center-right candidates could still win in 
Mexico and Peru, and one might unseat Brazil's leftist president. But 
that's not what Bush administration officials are anticipating. "This is 
a wave that has not peaked," one recently told me.

Thanks to Mar del Plata, Bush is at least aware of the problem. On his 
return he ordered a high-level review of U.S. policy in the region. A 
subsequent meeting of senior officials from the departments of State, 
Defense, Treasury and other agencies generated a handful of new ideas. 
For example, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who helped 
defuse a political crisis in Nicaragua in October, proposed an 
initiative to deepen U.S. engagement with countries in Central America 
as they implement the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Treasury spoke of working more closely with Brazil on its financial 
stability. There was talk of an energy initiative, perhaps in 
conjunction with Canada, to compete with Chavez's aggressive program of 
providing cheap oil to countries in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

There is still, however, no broader strategy for containing Chavez's 
political and economic offensive, which now includes a regional 
television network and an energy consortium. Some officials predict the 
appeal of the caudillo will fizzle and his support in Venezuela will 
collapse when he proves unable to deliver on the soaring expectations he 
has created. But Chavez will be cushioned by high oil prices for the 
foreseeable future.

Moreover, the positive steps the administration is planning are likely 
to be negated by the American policies that Latin Americans are most 
focused on: immigration and aid. In both cases the United States is 
preparing to punish its friends. Mexicans are outraged by the 
administration's support for tougher border controls and its failure to 
press reforms that would legalize guest workers. Salvadorans in the 
United States, including thousands in Washington, may lose their right 
to remain here and work under "temporary protection status"; sources 
tell me the administration has made a decision in principle not to renew 
it when it expires next fall.

Meanwhile, both Mexico and Chile may be excluded from U.S. aid programs 
this year because of their ratification of the treaty creating the 
International Criminal Court and their failure to sign bilateral 
treaties with Washington exempting U.S. citizens from it. A law 
mandating an aid cutoff in those circumstances provides for exemptions; 
Kirchner in Argentina inherited one. But administration ideologues have 
insisted on punishing friendly Latin nations that want to maintain a 
military alliance with the United States. Chile, which is purchasing 
U.S. F-16s, may not be able to get Pentagon training for its pilots if, 
as expected, it ratifies the treaty in the coming weeks.

All these developments may not matter much in the long run. Latin 
America poses no serious threat to U.S. security. Chavez and his 
populist followers will fail to create sustainable prosperity, as they 
have throughout Latin history. The same democracies that are giving 
leftists a chance to rule, if preserved, will oust them when they fail. 
In the short term, however, much of Latin America is going to be an 
unfriendly place for liberal ideas and free markets -- and with them the 
United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010200028.html
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