Obama Fail Blog

Source: Associated Press

Soldiers ringed President Manuel Zelaya's modest home, spilled into the cul-de-sac and swarmed the neighborhood, blocking what little traffic there was in a posh corner of the Honduran capital so early on a weekend morning.

The Honduran coup last Sunday was swift and bloodless. But the tension that culminated in Zelaya's overthrow had been building for months as his politics and rhetoric moved left, and he aligned himself closer to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Though Zelaya made no sweeping changes, his alliance with a president who abolished term limits and is making an economic shift toward socialism was unsettling to the business and political elite who still run Honduras — and from whose ranks Zelaya originally came.

"There's a sense of Zelaya overstepping his power and confusion over this embracing Chavez," said Peter DeShazo, who directs the Americas Program for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

At issue was a referendum Zelaya planned to hold the day of the coup, asking voters if they would support a subsequent vote to modify the constitution. Critics feared he would use it to do away with term limits and run again — something Chavez and other Latin American leftist leaders have succeeded in doing. Supporters of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative U.S. ally, also have proposed extending term limits to allow him to run again.

It took a week for President Obama to say something of substance against the violent repression of anti-government protesters in Iran. Fear of meddling, he said, was the reason for the delay.

Yet it took just hours for him to publicly denounce the removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan America-hater Hugo Chavez, by that nation's army and demand his immediate reinstatement.

No fear of meddling this time.

That's because Barack Obama's foreign policy is very much a moment-to-moment affair, with no guiding principles.

Okay, let's get this straight: According to President Obama, the U.S. must at all costs avoid even the slightest appearance of meddling in the internal affairs of Iran. But it's quite all right for the U.S. to join a declared enemy like Hugo Chavez to support another wannabe strong man like now-former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya? If this is the "policy of engagement" that is required to repair America's image around the world, we ought not be surprised when foreign leaders conclude the U.S. has no consistent, coherent policy abroad, and then act accordingly. When they do, it will be to advance their interests, not those of the U.S. For some, like Chavez, it could be an opportunity to do serious and possibly irreversible damage to America's legitimate overseas interests.

To be sure, the Honduran situation is an unusual one. At first glance, it looks like a return to the lamentable cycle of democracy followed by military coup that plagued Latin America for so long. But it doesn't require much inquiry to see the reality behind the headlines: Honduras is a remarkable demonstration of a democratic country acting legitimately and constitutionally to protect itself against a domestic threat aided by a hostile foreign power. Here are the essential facts of the Honduran "coup:" The Honduran constitution limits the president to one four-year term and establishes a process for amendment via a national referendum called by the Congress. But Zelaya demanded a rump referendum to enable him to seek re-election. In response, Honduras' attorney general and courts warned Zelaya to back off. Zelaya instead pressed forward, using illegal ballots shipped in from, guess where, Venezuela to stage an illegal referendum. That prompted the Honduran Supreme Court to rule the Zelaya referendum unconstitutional and to order the military not to participate in the voting process. Zelaya persisted, was arrested by the military, as he had been warned he would be, and went into exile.

Here is where the Honduran example departs from the conventional wisdom: Instead of suspending the constitution and assuming power for themselves, the generals supported the Congress, which in an emergency session declared its own top leader as Zelaya's interim successor and affirmed the election in November of a permanent successor. These actions were also affirmed by the Honduran Supreme Court. In other words, as was said over and over here after Watergate, "the system worked." So why is Obama - and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - siding with Chavez and two of his America-hating buddies, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, against an intact democracy?

Begin with ex-President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya -- a marginal victor in 2005. Formerly a centrist, this erratic politico morphed into a disciple of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. His popularity plunged over the next three years, as the nation was battered by rising crime, poverty and economic recession. All the while, Zelaya's presidential clock was ticking. Honduran presidents are limited to one four-year term. Nonetheless, Zelaya launched an unconstitutional re-election bid that provoked his ouster.

In backing Zelaya to the hilt, Venezuela's elective-dictator Hugo Chavez has pitched the crisis to its current level. He did much the same back in March 2007 when he threatened war against Colombia. Yet, Chavez is no champion of democracy -- at home or abroad.

Then there's Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, arguably the least democratic president in Latin America. Thanks to a pact with another corrupt Nicaraguan president, a constitutional change that allowed him to win office with 37% of the vote, and stolen municipal elections in November 2008, Ortega still claims a seat at the democracy table.

Also flying democratic colors is Cuban dictator Raul Castro, leader of a country without a free election since 1949. On June 29, in a moment worthy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magical realism, Fidel's younger brother lashed out at the "the fascists" in Honduras who had the audacity to "trample on the political rights of Hondurans." Rated "unfree" by Freedom House, Castro's Cuba holds over 200 political prisoners, denies freedom of speech, and preserves a state security system to defend its totalitarian regime.

Finally, another senior hemispheric leader dead set against the "illegal" Honduran regime is Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Miguel Insulza. Propping up Zelaya in Honduras can only advance El Panzer's concerted effort to bring communist Cuba back into the fold of the democratic OAS.

Whatever course events take, let's hope, the Obama team is mindful of the not-so hidden agendas of democracy's new-found but fickle friends.