THE AMERICAN AUTUMN - Will the US plutocracy learn from Latin America?

Ashok Mitra
The Telegraph, 22 December

The nightmare that once visited John Foster Dulles is having a re-run, but not in Asia. The domino principle is actually at work in the Western hemisphere. Presidential candidates patronized by the American administration are going down to ignominious defeat, one after another, in Latin American countries. In Brazil, Lula da Silva has been re-elected with a thumping margin. The Sandinistas had to wait 16 long years; perseverance however has paid, Daniel Ortega is back to power in Nicaragua. The presidential election in Mexico three months ago was a touch and go affair. A vast number of Mexican citizens, aghast at some provisions in the North American Free Trade Treaty, which they consider to be grossly unfair to their country’s economic interests, gave vent to their discontent in the polls; the pro-America candidate squeezed through, but his margin of victory over the candidate representing the left forces was less than one-half of one per cent. Widespread speculation persists that the counting of votes was vitiated in the final stages by rigging and other forms of skulduggery.

Meanwhile, though, there have been further adverse tidings from Latin America for the policy-planning staff based in Foggy Bottom, Washington DC. A stridently anti-US candidate has triumphed in the presidential election in Ecuador too. Even worse, that pain in the neck, Hugo Chavez, has won re-elections in Venezuela, this time with a majority even greater than in the past two occasions. A formidable phalanx of Latin American nations are now, in some manner or other, aligned with Fidel Castro’s Cuba in the increasingly strident campaign against ‘Yanqui’ imperialism: Guiana, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador. The so-called Monro doctrine is obviously buried several fathoms deep; few bother to listen to Uncle Sam any more, the quaking in fear at the very mention of the possibility of American ire is, in any case, long over.

The turmoil in its backwater cannot but add a qualitatively new dimension to the format of international relations the United States of America had been accustomed to. The enormous accretion of strength on the part of the Soviet Union at the end of the World War II, and Mao’s Long March ending in the establishment of the People’s Republic of China had forced the Americans, nearly six decades ago, to adopt a policy of expansion and containment. It had a logic of its own. Once Winston Churchill’s Fulton speech furnished the ideological fervour, the Cold War ensued and was fought in grim earnest in both Europe and Asia. There were one or two lucky breaks. The social democrats came over to the American side. France was saved from going under in the nick of time.

The Pope’s active intervention was sought and readily accorded to thwart the ambitious plan of Palmiro Togliatti to take over Italy. Josef Boris Tito’s tiff with Stalin was a windfall. Berlin became the symbol of the determination of Western capitalism not to surrender an inch of further ground to the communists.

Latin America was the lapdog, western Europe was reasonably safe, with Nato mounting guard over it. It was only south-east Asia which was then causing sleepless nights to the US administration. Dulles, as Eisenhower’s secretary of state, put together, in great haste, the South-east Asia Treaty Organization to stem the tide of communist advance.

The insurgency in Malaya had already been ended by the British, mostly by their own efforts. In Indonesia, the Americans took direct charge, organizing an army coup to immobilize left-leaning president, Mohammed Soekarno, and actively collaborating with the military junta in a ruthless pogrom against the communist party.

That greatest headache, Vietnam, however sucked the Americans in. It turned out to be the costliest of misjudgments. What started as a limited war soon got transformed into savage butchery and devastation of that country. The Vietnamese could not however be conquered; they fought back with amazing tenacity. Massive resentment within the US caused enormous political damage to the ruling politicians. The world’s mightiest power finally had to admit defeat; it withdrew with its tail between its legs.

There were happier developments elsewhere though. Despite the daunting presence of China, the rest of Asia entered a phase of gentlemanly moderation. It has not been exactly a pan-American milieu, but nothing much in the air to worry about either. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, despite their internal bickerings — or, who knows, because of these bickerings — have been extraordinarily deferential to the US.

The only country with a question mark is land-locked Nepal; roughly one-half of the country is already under the effective control of the Maoists. Fortunately for the Americans, not all Maoists excite the admiration of Beijing. Besides, the American success in penetrating into the territories in central Asia that were in the past outposts of the Soviet Union is insurance enough against any attempt at a swift communist take-over of the whole of Nepal.

In west Asia, on the other hand, the Americans have stumbled badly. Vietnam has apparently taught successive US administrations no lessons.

The folly of Afghanistan has been followed by the much greater one in Iraq. In both countries, the victory the American military establishment initially claimed is proving to be of a phantom character. George W. Bush and his advisers are obviously at a loss to decide how to exit. To stay on is likely to be equally difficult: voters back home are getting into an increasingly foul mood because of mounting casualties and rising financial involvement. 9/11 and global terror are, as a result, fastly depreciating currencies.

Domestic developments facilitated the Americans to extricate themselves from Vietnam. A democratic administration had taken the Americans into Vietnam; once the mess reached the quality of hell, a Republican administration assumed office and arranged for a quiet retreat from the south-east Asian bog. The withdrawal was marked by discredit, but at least there was still a veneer of semi-dignity.

Perhaps hope lies in a similar arrangement, with a reversal of roles of the nation’s two principal political parties. The Democrats have already captured both houses of the Congress. The national catharsis however is only half complete. The Americans, so goes the general hypothesis, will have to wait till the presidential poll in 2008; a Democrat will, according to general expectation, then be ushered in as the new president who may find it a shade less awkward to terminate the crusade in west Asia.

What should follow is a season of introspection for the American nation. Such an introspection could even prod it to revert to a phase of isolationism. That would not be altogether easy either. A major stumbling block is bound to be the factor of globalization: for instance, the huge dollar reserves countries such as China have been accumulating could pose a threat to the American economy and, therefore, to American peace of mind.

Another factor which will clamour to be taken into account is the surcease of Latin America as a placid backyard. The retreat from west Asia would mean a major loss of control over oil; once the Latin American countries are able to diversify the direction of their exports, the extra discomfiture could be a denial of oil to the US by Venezuela. While scientists and technologists continue their research in US laboratories to develop an alternative source of fuel to substitute oil, the threat to a way of life the average American citizen was accustomed to might breed a species of discontent that could intensify with the years.

The town cynic could pitch in here: the American plutocracy did not learn from Iraq, what is the rationale for assuming that they would from Latin America either?