Since 1999,Venezuelahas continued sliding deeper into authoritarianism, populism, militarism, and anti-Americanism. Displaying formidable skills in winning elections, demagoguery, and public showmanship, Hugo Chavez has dominated Venezuela’s polarized politics and run his country as a personal fiefdom for more than a decade. This situation may be about to change. In the …
Standing before a mural of Eva Peron Duarte (wife of Argentina’s legendary strongman Juan Domingo Peron and the “first lady of populism”) Argentina’s recently re-elected President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner unveiled a plan to seize majority ownership in Argentina’s chief energy company YPF and return it to state control. “We …
On April 13–15, President Obama participated in what will likely be the last Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. It showed that contemporary gatherings such as this latest Summit—absent strong U.S. leadership and lacking a genuinely constructive agenda—can easily be derailed. The showy gathering of heads of state was …
Americans looked to President Obama to set a bold and decisive course when he huddled yesterday with Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. There are critical issues on the table: Iran, the future of democracy in the Americas, free trade, energy security, and the fight against organized crime. Regrettably, serious discussion of …
At the April 2 meeting of North American leaders—President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, and President Obama—the U.S. President was not modest in his claims: “When I came to office I pledged to seek a new partnership with our friends in the Americas, a relationship …
Thirty years ago today, the Argentine army invaded the Falkland Islands, a sovereign British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic. A brutal military regime in Argentina calculated that a weakened United Kingdom, increasingly stripped of the elements of national power, would be unable to respond to a military fait accompli. …
This week, the White House dispatched its peripatetic Vice President Joe Biden south to Mexico and Honduras. Biden rightly sees criminal violence and insecurity as the gravest security threat in the region, but he was too quick to dismiss the potential threat posed by Iran. “People talk about Hezbollah. They …
U.S. policy toward sub-Saharan Africa seldom achieves headline status except in times of most acute crisis. Yet the vast continent of one billion, with all its hope, problems, and conflicts, requires sustained, high-level U.S. attention. Given the constraints on time of the President and Secretary of State, it often falls …
