Latin America's New Consensus

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As its political and economic influence in the region wanes, Washington has given up trying to convince Latin America to join the "war on terror," while its trade envoys are now reduced to signing bilateral deals with negligible economies like Paraguay and Ecuador to dilute opposition to the FTAA. The White House, under the sway of neocon ultras, has further backed itself into a corner by encouraging Chávez's adversaries to go for broke. Rather than patiently broadening a base of opposition and accumulating grievances, they have pursued an increasingly desperate series of actions--a coup attempt, an oil strike, the recall and, most recently, a boycott of legislative elections--that have left their nemesis strengthened and themselves discredited. Washington may be laying the groundwork for the same all-or-nothing strategy against Morales, having just announced that it is cutting off 96 percent of its military aid to Bolivia, a move that seems calculated to provoke the armed forces to act. The Bush Administration now promises to wage a battle for the "future of Latin America," but with few options left--except, of course, the military one--it is unclear if it will have any more success in what used to be the United States's backyard than it is having now in the Middle East.