Burying the ‘blame Bush’ meme in the Americas

When the Obama administration entered office, it was convinced that the Bush administration was uniquely responsible for the deterioration in U.S. relations with the crop of populist leaders elected in the Western Hemisphere. Beginning with the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad last year, it was their intent to rectify this situation by extending an "open hand" to the likes of Hugo Chavez and others and succeed in smoothing over tensions where President Bush had ostensibly failed. Today, this effort lies in shambles.

The most recent proverbial shoe to drop in this regard is Bolivia. The United States has not had an ambassador in La Paz since 2008, when President Evo Morales expelled respected career diplomat Phillip Goldberg, alleging that Goldberg was conspiring to Balkanize Bolivia into separate regional republics. The coca-growing Morales also ordered the expulsion of the DEA and the termination of some USAID alternative development projects in coca-growing regions.

This month, however, Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Arturo Valenzuela, traveled to La Paz to push for the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations between the United States and Bolivia. His trip also set the stage for a meeting  between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca on the margins of the Organization of American States General Assembly in Lima, Peru, to further this objective.

Apparently, President Morales never got the memo. In an ignominious rebuff to the prospect of bettering relations, Morales’s anti-American rhetoric has only increased. After accusing the United States of paying off and protecting drug dealers, he singled out USAID in a series of public attacks, accusing the development agency of "infiltrating" labor unions and bribing leaders to oppose his government. 

On the day after the Clinton meeting in Lima, Morales announced:

We expelled the ambassador of the United States and the Drug Enforcement Agency. If the U.S. Agency for International Development continues with its activities, I will not hesitate to expel them because we are dignified, sovereign, and we are not going to allow any interference." 

As for any attempt to reconcile with Hugo Chavez, that ended some time ago, as Chavez quickly retreated after the Summit of the Americas to his comfort zone attacking the United States for all ills, global and domestic, including blaming the Haitian earthquake on U.S. weapons testing. Even his latest tasteless, sexist remarks about Hillary Clinton harkens back to his similarly crude treatment of Condoleezza Rice.

Cuba is a non-starter, what with the recent death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo and the arrest of American Alan Gross for doing nothing more than providing internet equipment to Cuban civil society groups.

So where does this leave administration policy in the hemisphere? Pretty much where the Bush administration left it — continuing to support and work with governments who share our vision and our values and speaking out against threats to democratic stability and security, largely perpetrated by those ideological populists whose agendas are a lot broader than simply making nice with the United States.