Sadly, the tragic death of another Cuban dissident hunger striker will not change conditions in that island-prison nor provoke governments to reassess their historical indulgence of the Castro regime's crimes. Business as usual will continue.

In fact, this week, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is in Cuba promoting business opportunities for Brazilian companies. She plans no meetings with Cuban dissidents.

But the Jan19 death of 31-year-old dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza will not be in vain. Indeed, when decent people arrive in Cuba to pick through the rubble left by the most oppressive regime this hemisphere has ever seen, his sacrifice -- and that of thousands of Cuban martyrs before him -- will be rightly honored on Cuban soil.

But if there is one immediate purpose that the tragic death of Wilman Villar can serve, it is to put the definitive lie to the currently fashionable meme that Cuba, under Raúl Castro, "is changing."

For example, according to the Associated Press, Cuba just wrapped up a "dramatic year of economic change." The BBC informs us, "Cuba expands free-market reforms," while Reuters adds, "Cuba to free 2,900 in sweeping amnesty."

Frankly, the only thing sweeping Cuba these days -- besides the ongoing state repression -- is the hyperbole in foreign correspondents' dispatches.

I have dealt with Cuba's smoke-and-mirrors reforms in this space before, but to briefly summarize, all interested observers need to know about Cuban "reforms" are two things:

They signify no new recognition of the inalienable rights of the Cuban people by the regime. "Allowing" a few new bits of heavily circumscribed individual economic freedoms is hardly indicative of fundamental change. The relationship between state and citizen remains the same -- although instead of controlling 100 percent of the economy, the regime will now control 99.5 percent.

Secondly, recent changes are not meant to reform the system but to save the system. Allowing Cubans to repair children's dolls outside the purview of the state does not mean Cuba is on the road to a free market; it means the regime is looking for new ways to generate revenue through confiscatory taxes of limited private economic activity.

Raul Castro himself serves as the best spokesman that the regime is not contemplating any kind of fundamental reform. Speaking recently at a party conference, he said, "There has been no shortage of criticism and exhortations by those who have confused their intimate desires with reality, deluding themselves that this conference would consecrate the beginning of the dismantling of the political and social system the revolution has fought for more than half a century."

To be sure, the hyperbole surrounding recent changes in Cuba has an ulterior motive. It is meant to apply pressure on U.S. policymakers to make unilateral changes in U.S. policy, because Cuba is ostensibly "reforming." Thankfully, the Obama administration so far hasn't taken the bait. In fact, last September, the President took the matter head-on, saying, "They [the Castro regime] certainly have not been aggressive enough when it comes to liberating political prisoners and giving people the opportunity to speak their minds."

Indeed, at a time when no quarter is being given to undemocratic regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, the suggestion that the U.S. should lessen pressure on an undemocratic regime ninety miles from our shores strikes a wholly discordant note and is unlikely to be entertained by any serious policymaker. The Cuban people deserve no less than what the peoples of those regions deserve: the freedom to live their lives as they see fit. Clearly, that concept was as alien to Muammar al-Qaddafi as it is to the Castro brothers -- which is why they deserve the same fate.

You have to hand it to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. He has a plan and he is working it relentlessly. Unfortunately, for those concerned about democracy in the hemisphere, his plan calls for the gutting of democratic institutions in Ecuador and concentrating all power in his person.

It may be that the Ecuadorean populist doesn't generate the international headlines like his amigo in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, but that doesn't make him any less of a threat to democracy in the region.

Recently, Correa has generated some attention in the U.S. for the campaign of intimidation he is waging against one of the country's most respected newspapers, El Universo. Editorials in the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times have harshly criticized his efforts to drag the newspaper owners and a columnist into court and winning a $40 million judgment in a trumped-up defamation proceeding.

According to the Post, what is occurring in Ecuador is, "the most comprehensive and ruthless assault on free media underway in the Western Hemisphere."

The problem is that abuse of the media is only one troublesome aspect of Correa's populist project. Undermining rule of law is another. This week, for example, a new Ecuadorean Supreme Court will be seated, the product of referendum Correa rammed through last year, giving his latest power grab a patina of legitimacy.

Evidently not satisfied with the provisions on selecting judges in his own rewritten constitution of 2008, Correa changed the rules again. The standing Supreme Court was abolished and through a new, convoluted selection process -- controlled by the Executive -- Correa got what he wanted: 13 of the new 21 judges are now in his pocket.

But with control of the judiciary and his party's present control of the National Assembly, Correa is still not satisfied. He has set as his next priority ensuring that his party remains in control of the legislature by rewriting electoral laws to unduly favor incumbents (including himself) in the run-up to 2013 elections.

For example, a law he is currently pushing would prohibit the news media from "either directly or indirectly promoting any given candidate, proposal, options, electoral preferences or political thesis, through articles, specials or any other form of message." As to how anyone could run a campaign under such a law is mind-boggling -- which is obviously the way Correa wants it.

Correa's defenders point to his current popularity in Ecuador to somehow justify his policies, but that is hardly a measure of the health of any democracy. Demagogues have never had much problem recording high popularity numbers by playing to mass resentments and envy. The true measure of the health of any democracy is the respect and protection afforded the rights of the minority. And, in Ecuador, those protections are increasingly non-existent.

Drinking from the populist cup will someday soon cause a massive hangover for Correa's mass of supporters. But there is plenty the U.S. and other defenders of democracy in the region can do and say to stand up to Correa's steady suffocation of democratic processes and hollowing out of democratic institutions.

Unfortunately, the administration response to date has been only to silently and feebly nominate a new U.S. ambassador to Ecuador following Correa's intemperate expulsion of respected career diplomat Heather Hodges in April 2011. (The nomination of the new ambassador has been held up, however, by Senator Marco Rubio [R-FL] out of frustration with the administration's languorous policies towards the steady erosion of democracy in the region.)

The least the administration could do is speak out against Correa's trampling of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and provide public support to those Ecuadoreans standing up for their rights. If the administration aims to pursue a new ambassador to Quito, then it needs to select someone more experienced in difficult environments who is not afraid to publicly stand up for the principles and values enshrined in the Charter.

As the New York Times noted, "Latin America has a bitter history of authoritarian rule. It has struggled hard to get beyond those days. All of the hemisphere's democratic leaders, including President Obama, need to push back against Mr. Correa." Indeed, Ecuadorean democrats cannot do it alone.

On his current tour of Latin American outliers, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stopped in Venezuela this week to share a belly-laugh with his compañero Hugo Chávez over the supposed nuclear threat either of their countries poses to the civilized world.

Gesticulating outside the presidential palace, Chávez said, "That hill will open up and a big atomic bomb will come out," with Ahmadinejad adding that any bomb they would build together would be fueled by "love."

A couple of real cut-ups.

While their mockery should fall flat amongst most sober observers, the fact remains that much of Washington is still unable to grasp the nature and dimensions of the Iranian threat in Latin America.

For example, elsewhere on this site, Michael Shifter, a perceptive analyst of Latin American politics, fails to contemplate the worst of Iran's intentions and argues instead that Iran hasn't managed to meet many of its economic pledges in the region, and has equally failed in making inroads with the biggest power players of the region, such as Brazil.

That, indeed, may be true, but neither is relevant to Iran's covert agenda of evading international sanctions and developing contingencies if the cold war with the United States was to suddenly turn hot.

Indeed, for the past twelve months or so, skeptics have proven more diligent in attempting to debunk reports of Iranian-Venezuelan collusion than following where the (prodigious) trail leads. The hoary "no smoking gun" is continually trotted out to summarily end any discussion.

But for anyone who cares to look, the public record is filled with more than enough information to elicit serious concern about the Iranian threat and spur demand that Washington take more concerted action. Consider just the following:

Money Laundering: Iran has already been caught evading sanctions through Venezuela when an Iranian bank in Caracas was sanctioned by the Treasury Department for providing financial services to Iran's military.

Drugs: U.S. law enforcement officials believe that a weekly commercial flight between Caracas and Tehran and Damascus (dubbed "Aero-Terror" by Brazilian intelligence because no one knows who or what are on those flights) is used to traffic illicit drugs from South America to the Middle East.

Uranium: Venezuela possesses vast amounts of uranium, primarily in the Roraima Basin along its border with Guyana. Across the border in Guyana, a Canadian company is mining uranium. On the Venezuelan side of the border, we are to believe Iran is operating a "gold mine."

Weapons: In two cases made public, ships smuggling either bomb-making equipment from Iran to Venezuela or weapons to Hezbollah from Venezuela were intercepted.

Terrorism: A member of the terrorist network plotting to detonate fuel tanks at JFK International Airport in New York in 2007 was arrested on the run to Venezuela where he planned to board a flight to Tehran. An explosive documentary, "The Iranian Threat," aired last month on Univision, presenting not only incriminating information on Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats discussing cyberattacks on sensitive U.S. computer systems (the State Department subsequently expelled the Venezuelan diplomat from the U.S., where she had been re-posted), but also compelling evidence on how young Latinos are targeted for recruitment and paramilitary training in Iran and Venezuelan camps visited by Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Colombian FARC.

Again, this is but a sliver of the information that has already been made public about Iran-Venezuela machinations. Instead of pundits pining for that "smoking gun," they should be demanding what is it that we don't know?

Thankfully, Capitol Hill is starting to get active on this issue and will press the administration for answers on these important questions when they return later this month. The White House will also likely find itself on the defensive on this issue during this election year -- and that is all to the good if it focuses policymakers minds on the problem.

And as the layers of the Iranian-Venezuelan relationship continued to be stripped away, it is a virtual certainty that even more distressing details of the threat posed to the United States will emerge. But the longer we wait, it will prove only more difficult to counteract.

An end-of-the-year assessment of U.S. policy towards Latin America could possibly qualify for the world's shortest blog.  For a President who has clearly established that foreign policy is not something that gets him up in the morning (or appears to keep him awake at night), Latin America must rank just above Antarctica in descending areas of interest.

This uneven, sporadic focus on the region has led to only adverse consequences for U.S. interests.  What effort the administration does expend seems only directed toward placating a smattering of hostile populist regimes, while ignoring the interests of our friends.  Indeed, the predictable response is that we have only emboldened our enemies and despaired those in the hemisphere who share the U.S. vision of open political systems, free markets, and robust trade. 

Radical populists in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia have run roughshod over democratic institutions and the best Washington can come up with is asking for the terms under which a U.S. ambassador would be allowed to return to their capitals.  In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega is likely chuckling at the feeble U.S. response to his recently rigged re-election.

It also appears that the administration has lulled itself into complacency over a cancer-stricken Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, ground zero for regional instability, seemingly content to wait and see what happens after Chávez passes from the scene.  But even as his circus antics continue, he is leaving behind what my colleague Roger Noriega calls a mountain of toxic waste that will take years to clean up.

Chávez's days may indeed be numbered, but his friends in Iran, Russia, China, and Cuba are certainly taking the long-term view of things.  All four have been great beneficiaries of Chávez's political solidarity and oil-fueled largesse and can be counted on to want to maintain that access with or without him in power.  In other words, don't count on them to support a democratic transition away from Chavismo, only a succession.  Every day, the United States stands idly on the sidelines, the chances they will succeed improve. 

The administration's complacency may also be due to the current economic boom the region is experiencing, as commodity producers are riding the great wave of Chinese demand.  If the U.S. profile in the region has diminished, does it really matter?   Times are good, government coffers are relatively full, and poverty is declining.

The problem with this scenario is that Chinese demand will not always be there.  The Chinese economy as it exists today will not be the same one a decade from now.  Moreover, long-term regional prosperity is not going to be built on producing raw materials for the development of the Chinese economy today.  All the current boom is accomplishing today is masking over the deep structural changes that are still desperately needed in most of the region's economies.

There will be many who will cheer-lead that Latin America is finally out from underneath the United States' long shadow and doing great "on its own" - but such sentiments are short-sighted.  Many challenges remain:  transnational criminal organizations involved in the drug trade continue to wreak havoc, making a mockery of rule of law along with corruption in many countries; too many citizens in the region are shut out of their country's economies through excessive regulation and other barriers; and doing business in the region is still too difficult to draw the kind of investment that is flowing to Asia.

It's not the United States has all the answers for what ails the hemisphere, but what we can offer is steady partnership over the long-term to confront the challenges together.  For security, economic, energy, and political reasons, we have a vested interest in the fortunes of our neighbors to the south.  And they in ours.  It's time we elevated those relationships to reflect that reality.

One certainly hopes that President Obama's recent criticism of Iran-Venezuela relations indicates a new willingness on the part of his administration to confront the growing menace of the radical Islamist regime in the Western Hemisphere.

In comments submitted to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, the president said that Hugo Chávez's ties to Iran "have not served the interests of Venezuela or the Venezuelan people" and expressed concern about his anti-democratic behavior and his failure "to contribute to the security in the region."

"Here in the Americas," he said, "we take Iranian activities, including in Venezuela, very seriously and we will continue to monitor them closely."

The president's comments came on the heels of further explosive revelations on the extent of Iranian subversion of U.S. interests in the region.  Earlier this month, the Spanish-language network Univision aired an investigative documentary,"The Iranian Threat" -- the product of months of research -- that included incriminating information on Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats in Mexico discussing waging cyberattacks on sensitive U.S. computer systems, including those of nuclear power plants.

Shortly thereafter, U.S. law enforcement officials revealed details of an investigation into a Lebanese bank in Canada that laid out Hezbollah's sophisticated global money-laundering operations that includes direct involvement by senior officials in the lucrative South American  drug trade.  The revelations put the lie to the State Department's long-repeated talking point that Hezbollah merely "raises funds" in Latin America for its operations in the Middle East.

Both reports drew sharp reactions from Capitol Hill, where a number of members have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the direction of the administration's regional policy.  Senator Bob Menéndez (D-NJ), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said he would hold hearings on Iran's destructive role in the region when the Senate reconvenes in 2012.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said she would request the State Department to conduct its own investigation "into Iran's deeply troubling partnerships with regional dictators such as Chavez, Morales, Correa, Ortega and the Castro brothers."

(It bears noting as well that in the Nov. 22 Republican presidential candidates' National Security Debate, the threat posed by radical Islam operating in the Western Hemisphere was featured prominently as a national security issue that official Washington was neglecting.)

Thankfully, it appears the steady drumbeat of concern about Iran and their Hezbollah proxies' strategic push into the Americas has finally caught the White House's attention.   To date, U.S. law enforcement agencies have had to confront this threat virtually alone.  It is time the entire Executive Branch foreign policy apparatus joins in, including the slumbering State Department.

Most importantly, it is time for ramping up actions to back up the president's words.   This includes not only identifying more individuals, companies, and/or governments found to be aiding and abetting Iran and Hezbollah in their nefarious activities and bringing the full weight of sanctions against them, but also conducting a full-bore public diplomacy campaign for regional audiences on Iran's intentions and activities in the region and the dangers for their societies therein.

To date, consorting with Iran has been a freebie for anti-American demagogues like Chávez, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, and Bolivia's Evo Morales.  The administration needs to move now to raise the costs.

Monday night in Caracas, opposition candidates to President Hugo Chávez held their first debate to decide who will challenge him in the scheduled October 2012 Venezuelan presidential election. In a sign of their continuing political maturation, the candidates rightly addressed bread-and-butter issues that matter to the vast majority of Venezuelans, such as the country's skyrocketing crime rate and Chávez's poor management of the Venezuelan economy.

The debate represented another important step forward in the Venezuelan opposition's long road back to political relevance. For most of the past decade, the image of the opposition -- shared by official opinion in Washington -- has not been favorable. It was seen as disorganized, hopelessly divided, and lacking in a vision that could cut into the broad working-class support for Hugo Chávez. That has been changing, however.

And with serious questions being raised about Chávez's health, and whether he will even survive until October of next year (in a telling recent comment, Chávez told his followers that, "The revolution cannot depend on one man"), all of a sudden the Venezuelan opposition takes on a whole new importance - one that the Obama administration must recognize and adapt to accordingly.

The leading candidates are Henrique Capriles, governor of Miranda state, which includes much of Caracas; Pablo Pérez, governor of oil-rich Zulia state; Leopoldo López, former mayor of Chacao municipality in Caracas; and Maria Corina Machado, a founder of the civil society organization Súmate.

All four represent a new generation of Venezuelans with no ties to the old-line parties that Chávez has used as fodder in his rise to power. All the candidates convey youthful vigor and an understanding that today's Venezuela is vastly different than that of their parents. They say they want to break down the country's polarization under Chávez and provide more opportunities for marginalized communities. They also say they will unite behind whoever wins their February 2012 primary for the right to take on Chávez.

Any of the candidates can win over wealthy and middle-class voters; the key is whether they can win over disaffected Chávez supporters fed up with the hash he has made of the Venezuelan economy, the deterioration of public services, and soaring street crime.

Make no mistake about it, however: if somehow Chávez remains healthy enough to campaign and make it until next October, he will be re-elected. His popularity, willingness to spend billions for his re-election, and his control of the electoral mechanisms make him the prohibitive favorite. But that is the point -- if he is healthy. If he succumbs to his cancer, then all bets are off.

Thus, the Obama administration needs to approach the election as anything but a perfunctory Chávez victory and instead prepare for a possible tectonic shift in Venezuelan politics. That means expressions of solidarity with candidates who are trying to play by democratic rules and speaking out against Chavista attempts to rig the election for his chosen successor, if it comes to that. Chávez's faltering health means that there is every chance October 2012 will bring an opportunity for the Venezuelan people to chart a new course, one that combines an awareness of the great disparities in Venezuelan society without the radicalism, rancor, polarization, and anti-Americanism of the past twelve years. It is crucial therefore that Washington not be on the sidelines as these events play out, but is actively engaged to promote our considerable interests in such an outcome.

The Castro regime's announcement that for the first time Cuban citizens will be able to buy and sell their own homes has spurred an outpouring of irrational exuberance that real change is finally coming to the island-prison of Dr. Castro. "To say that it's huge is an understatement," one interested observer told the New York Times. "This is the foundation, this is how you build capitalism, by allowing the free trade of property."

Another told Reuters, "The ability to sell houses means instant capital formation for Cuban families ... It is a big sign of the government letting go." Still another writes in the Christian Science Monitor that these are "incredibly meaningful changes."

Such optimism is ill-founded. In fact, it is indicative only of one of two things: either it betrays a brazen political objective (Time magazine: "Why the U.S. Should Drop the Embargo and Prop Up Cuban Homeowners") or it demonstrates just how low the bar of expectation has been placed for what the Cuban people need and deserve that we must celebrate mere crumbs tossed their way by the Castro dictatorship.

Indeed, sweep away the hype and all you see are daunting hurdles as to how this announcement will change in any way the regime's suffocating control of the Cuban population. The new order restricts people to "ownership" of one permanent residence and one vacation home (as if the average Cuban is in any position to own a second home); all transactions must be approved by the State; no explanation is given on how you grant titles to homes that either have been confiscated from their rightful owners, have been swapped multiple times in the underground economy, or which house multiple families because of the severe shortage of available housing; the construction industry remains state-controlled; and the regime itself admits this order reflects no backsliding on the preeminence of the State in controlling the country's economic and political systems.

Beyond these challenges, however, is the fundamental fact that you cannot conjure private property rights, let alone the free trade in property, out of thin air. Those rights exist only where they are rooted in a credible, impartial, and transparent legal superstructure that can protect one's property, settle disputes, and guarantee transactions against the predations of the State. Anything less is a rigged game where the State is the dealer.

This is how the State Department's annual Human Rights Report characterizes Cuba's judicial system: "While the constitution recognizes the independence of the judiciary, the judiciary is subordinate to the imperatives of the socialist state. The National Assembly appoints all judges and can remove them at any time. Through the National Assembly, the state exerted near-total influence over the courts and their rulings ... Civil courts, like all courts in the country, lack an independent or impartial judiciary as well as effective procedural guarantees."

Translation: Cubans' ability to "own" property, trade, or leverage their property to build capital will continue to exist at the sufferance of the State. And what the State giveth, the State can taketh away. The bottom line is that, ultimately, all Cubans will really own is a piece of paper that says they own something.

Rather than empowering individual Cubans, the regime's goal in allowing the open trade of houses is to hopefully siphon more Cuban American money into the island's perennially bankrupt economy. With average Cubans on the island too poor to buy or improve their dilapidated dwellings, their hope is relatives in Miami and elsewhere will remit even more cash to the island attempting to improve their relations' situation. Indeed, the cynicism of relying on Cuban exiles to support the Cuban economy has never bothered the Castro brothers in the slightest.

The Castro regime recognizes the increasing unrest among the repressed and impoverished Cuban people for fundamental change, but they are capable only of prescribing more painkillers rather than the radical surgery that is needed to restore the nation's health. Pretending to devolve more autonomy in individuals' lives is just one more cruelty inflicted on the Cuban people over five decades of dictatorship, a cruelty made worse by the cheerleading from abroad.

Many of the news reports on Argentinean President Cristina Kirchner's landslide reelection victory this past weekend contained a healthy dose of skepticism on the sustainability of her populist economic model. The skepticism is well-founded. We've all seen this movie before, and know exactly how it ends.

Heavy state intervention in the economy, massive subsidies, and the redistribution of income -- the hallmarks of economic populism -- have a way of playing themselves out, proving time and time again that lasting prosperity can never be built on acquiring unlimited debt or just printing more money.

As UCLA economist Sebastian Edwards, a Chilean, writes in his brilliant takedown of Latin American populism, Left Behind: Latin America and the False Promise of Populism, all populist experiments begin with great euphoria and surges in economic growth, but invariably lead to rapid inflation, higher unemployment, and lower wages -- and soon thereafter, stagnation and crisis.

There is no question that right now times are good in Argentina. Since the country hit rock bottom in 2002, when it defaulted on $100 billion in debt, the largest sovereign debt default in history, the country has undergone a seemingly remarkable turnaround under the stewardship of the late Nestor Kirchner and now his widow, Cristina. The economy is expected to grow by 8 percent this year and unemployment is at a 20-year low.

But the problem is that Argentina's economic success has been built not on strong fundamentals, but on a tenuous foundation of heavy government spending, high commodity prices, and strong demand from China and Brazil for soy and other agricultural products. And what goes up in economics can always come down.

Other troubling signs are double-digit inflation, which private economists put at 25 to 30 percent; capital flight ($9.8 billion was pulled out of the economy in the first half of this year, compared with $11.4 billion in all of 2010); and plummeting foreign investment (down 30 percent in the first half of 2011).

The other elephant in the living room is the fact that Argentina has been shut out of credit markets since it left bondholders holding the bag in billions of dollars of unpaid debt from its 2002 default. Not only has there been no reconciliation, but the Kirchner government has gone out of its way to reject lawsuits and other claims from creditors. As a result, the Obama administration and multilateral lenders have refused further loans until Argentina begins to repay what it owes investors and settle with holders of defaulted debt, as well as adhere to its obligations with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.

Yet despite warnings by economists that the government's profligate spending, coupled with a global economic slump, could spell disaster, the Kirchner administration soldiers on. Indeed, why wouldn't it see her overwhelming reelection victory as anything but a mandate to continue its unorthodox ways? "After a lifetime of pushing those ideas," she said after her victory, "We now see that they were not a mistake and that we are on the right path."

On the other side, former President Eduardo Duhalde, who unsuccessfully challenged Kirchner, said, "We're happily dancing on the Titanic."

Given the prevailing capital flight and declining investment in Argentina, the smart money is obviously on Duhalde. Fortunately, those players are in a position to avoid the risk; what's unfortunate are the millions of poor and middle-class Argentineans who will once again pay the price for Argentina's populist folly when the inevitable day of reckoning returns.