Textbook US Diplomacy and Geopolitics: The Case of Honduras

By only focusing on the superficial and short-term aspects of the State Department's official policy toward Honduras following Mr. Zelaya's ousting, many people failed to distinguish between tactics and strategy in the game of geopolitics.

By Marco Cáceres
Today, former president Manuel Zelaya is in Venezuela meeting with President Hugo Chávez and President Porfirio Lobo is in Guatemala visiting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In a pitiful display of political paranoia, you have Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro complaining that Mrs. Clinton's goodwill tour through South and Central America during the past week is an egregious effort to intervene in Latin America and destroy the sense of solidarity that exists among the countries of the region. In the meantime, the political situation in Honduras has stabilized with the peaceful election and inauguration of Mr. Lobo -- both of which were made infinitely more likely by the US-brokered Tegucigalpa-San José Accord between representatives of interim president Roberto Micheletti and Mr. Zelaya. Further, the US has recognized the Lobo administration, restarted its economic and military aid programs, and willingly served as an enthusiastic and powerful advocate around the world for normalizing diplomatic relations with Honduras.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chávez is facing violent daily demonstrations on the streets of Venezuelan cities by tens of thousands of citizens who are wary of their government's continuing march toward an unabashed socialist dictatorship and weary with the growing laundry list of acute economic problems. And to make things even more embarrassing for him, he is being criticized by regional human rights organizations and free press associations and asked to explain some of his more heavy-handed moves by governments of countries such as France and Spain.

My... how things have changed. It was not that long ago that the Obama administration was being blamed for betraying Honduras by condemning the overthrow of Mr. Zelaya and implementing aid sanctions against the Micheletti government. Seems like only yesterday that the Obama administration was being criticized for colluding with Mr. Chávez in some sort of nefarious conspiracy to destroy democracy in Latin America and install socialist regimes throughout the region. I recall hearing so-called experts on Latin America saying, "I just can't understand what the Obama administration is doing in Honduras". I recall thinking that if these people were truly experts they might not agree with the administration's policy, but they should at least be able to analyze it, make some sense of it, and explain it in lay terms to the public. Otherwise, what's the point of being an expert?

In the end, the judgment by many was simply that President Obama is a socialist and secretly an admirer of Mr. Chávez, and thus by definition an enemy of democracy... and that that was the reason for the US government's unwillingness to recognize and support the Micheletti government. What?

The idea that the US State Department might actually have intelligent and professional people who know a little about the history of US involvement in Latin America and how roused Latin Americans get when the US is perceived as supporting forced removals of freely-elected heads of state tended to be dismissed. The notion that the US might be acting to contain the trauma of what many people in Honduras and Latin America viewed as a coup and thus take away the ability of long-winded, opportunistic troublemakers like Mr. Chávez to paint the US in a poor light (... and thereby raise his own regional clout) was disregarded.

By only focusing on the superficial and short-term aspects of the State Department's official policy toward Honduras following Mr. Zelaya's ousting, many people failed to distinguish between tactics and strategy in the game of geopolitics. By attributing the mixed signals that the Obama administration appeared to be sending by supporting Mr. Zelaya... but not "too much", many people neglected to consider the importance of nuance in international diplomacy, at least until a situation has been given a chance to evolve and become less murky.

It is possible that the US merely got lucky in Honduras, and that the relatively bright political outlook that is emerging in the country is occurring in spite of US policy rather than because of it. It is possible that the US is extremely fortunate that Mr. Chávez and Mr. Zelaya now find themselves at a loss as to what to do next, given that their receptive audiences are diminishing. It is also possible that the US played a very good game with the cards it was dealt, and that this is precisely what has led to the growing isolation of these two characters and a calming of the political crisis in Honduras. (3/5/10) (graphic courtesy Internet)