U.S. policy in Latin America under President Obama has been mostly defined by a decline in U.S. influence and a languorous response to anti-democratic actions by a passel of populist regimes. Now we know the reason why: It's those obstructionist Senate Republicans.

That's the clear implication of an article last week in the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Sway Clipped in Latin America," in which Senate Republicans are left largely holding the shears.

According to the Journal, "Republican lawmakers have been blocking many of the Obama administration's Latin American nominations for three years," and that, "The Republican strategy has left many in the U.S. government perplexed about how to engage the vast territory."

Both assertions are patent nonsense.

While it is true that the nominations of a new Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and one ambassadorship are being held up and that another ambassador was blocked from returning to post after a recess appointment (a third nominee was redirected to Panama after both a Democrat and Republican objected to his initial posting to Nicaragua), that is hardly indicative of a three-year campaign.

In fact, prior to these current holds, the only Obama nominee held up by Senate Republicans has been career official Tom Shannon, who is now Ambassador to Brazil. (Senate Democrats blocked not one, but two of George W. Bush's nominees for Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere.)

Secondly, the notion that Senate Republicans are hindering a more robust U.S. policy in the hemisphere mixes up cause and effect. One senior official told the Journal, "Obviously, embassies continue to work on important issues without an ambassador. But not having an ambassador muffles our voice. There are things that need to be spoken about. The bully pulpit just isn't as effective without an ambassador."

But it is precisely because the administration has failed to use ambassadorial bully pulpits in the face of the ongoing assault on democratic institutions in the region that has partly fueled Senate Republicans' current frustrations.

A particularly risible assertion is that a lack of an ambassador in Ecuador -- the last one was unceremoniously expelled by President Rafael Correa -- is hurting U.S. interests, because "Some point to progress being that was being made in bringing Ecuador's left-wing President Rafael Correa toward more moderate governing, particularly toward the business community, despite efforts by Mssrs. Ortega and Chávez to sway him further to their side."

Progress? In Ecuador? The only progress being made in Ecuador is in President Correa's systematic dismantling of separation of powers and rule of law and his unremitting war against the media, which the Washington Post recently called, "the most comprehensive and ruthless assault on free media underway in the Western Hemisphere."

Rather than being criticized, Senate Republicans -- primarily Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) -- should be applauded for trying to pressure the administration into injecting some purpose and energy into its hemispheric policy. Rather than attempting to placate angry leftists in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Argentina, the administration needs to be more vocal in its support for democrats throughout the region who feel abandoned by the lackluster response from Washington.

The administration has had three years to develop and implement a regional policy that serves U.S. interests and those of our responsible neighbors. Rather than being obstructionist, all Senate Republicans are trying to do is help bring that about.

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.

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.

The next Republican president needs to look at Brazil as we do Canada and Mexico. Consider that Brazil is currently the sixth or the seventh biggest economy in the world, and depending on whose projections you follow, is forecasted to become the fifth sometime in the next ten years. After 16 years of political and economic stability, targeted social programs, and private sector led growth through the opening of the economy, over 25 million people have been pulled out of poverty.

Much has been written about the major oil discoveries off the coast of Brazil. Some predict that Brazil will be one of the top five oil producers in the world in 2020 and the largest in South America. There is talk of as much as $1 trillion needed to drill off shore in very complicated contexts to achieve these production levels. The business opportunities for American oil and oil service companies and the changes to the way we think about energy security are favorable to the United States.

Brazil is the leading producer and innovator in the field of biofuels with significant portions of their car and truck fleets running on sugar based ethanol.

Not as publicized, but equally important, Brazil has, for the most part, gotten a handle on its rainforest problem and is seeking to balance agriculture (mainly soy and beef production) with preservation of the rainforest. With three center-left governments elected since 2002 with the implicit or explicit backing from the Green party, the debate between agriculture and environment has found a balance the Brazilians are happy with. Recent satellite photos demonstrate that the rainforest is reclaiming over 20 percent of the lands that have been cut down. Ask yourself when was the last time you heard a plea from an environmental NGO to "save the rainforest" and you'll see what I mean.

Brazil is hosting the World Cup and the Summer Olympics over the next five years. Even if we don't take soccer seriously, the rest of the world does and these are both big prestige wins for Brazil and a big opportunity for American business.

Brazil's largest trading partner is China -- something that has happened only in the last five or seven years. Its second is the European Union with the United States close behind. At the same time, the bloom has come off the rose with the Chinese and this may present an opportunity for the United States over the medium term on a free trade agreement between the United States and Brazil. The Brazilians are concerned about the "invasion" of "cheap" Chinese manufactured goods competing with local Brazilian goods. In other words, in the Brazilian Mind: "selling soy to China good. Buying Chinese shoes is bad..." This may be our opportunity to restart bilateral trade talks down the road if this continues to be a source of worry for the Brazilians.

The U.S. embassy in Brazil processes more visas to visit the United States than that of any other country in the world -- more than China. By the way, we are well represented in the country by Ambassador Tom Shannon -- Shadow Government readers will remember him as Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere in Bush 43.

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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.

In the Al Pacino epic Scarface, about Miami's violent cocaine culture of the 1980s, the drug kingpin is seen as a Bolivian ensconced in a luxurious mountain villa with a handful of Bolivian generals in his pocket. It was of a piece with the times. (Bolivian dictator General Luis García Meza Tejada would later be sentenced to 30 years in jail for drug trafficking.)

However, through the 1990s and 2000s, successive Bolivian governments worked with the United States to cripple the drug cartels operating there, so much so that the notion of a South American narco-general seemingly had been dumped into the historical dustbin.

Well, thanks to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, the South American narco-general appears to be rising again from the ash heap. Last week, a federal judge in Miami sentenced the former head of Bolivia's elite counternarcotics unit, General René Sanabria, to 14 years in prison for arranging protection for a shipment of some 140 kilos of cocaine from Bolivia to the United States. He was captured in June in Panama in a DEA sting and reportedly controlled a network of some 40 dirty cops.

Such is the outcome of Morales's decision in 2008 to expel the DEA from Bolivia, one of the largest cocaine producers in the world. Morales, a coca grower union leader, said the DEA's presence was an offense to the country's "dignity." Since then, the production and trafficking of cocaine has skyrocketed, with drug traffickers from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and elsewhere seizing the opportunity to expand operations in Bolivia.

This month, the State Department again cited the Morales government as having "failed demonstrably" to adhere to their obligations under international agreements to combat narcotics trafficking.

Lumped in with Bolivia and Burma as countries that have also failed demonstrably is Venezuela, where Morales benefactor Hugo Chavez relies on his own share of narco-generals to maintain power. Earlier this month, the Treasury Department added another of Venezuela's most powerful generals, Cliver Alcalá, to its kingpin list, where he joins two others designated in 2008, the Commander-in-Chief of the Venezuelan military, General Henry Rangel Silva, and the Chief of Military Intelligence, General Hugo Carvajal. (The Treasury designation means any assets the individuals have in U.S. accounts are frozen and U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with them.)

All three are charged with aiding and abetting the activities of drug-running guerrillas in neighboring Colombia and all three were named by captured Venezuelan drug kingpin Walid Makled as having been on his payroll and facilitated his drug trafficking operations. (Unfortunately, the Obama administration failed to pursue Makled's extradition from Colombia, and he was sent back to Venezuela.)

U.S. law enforcement agencies -- particularly the DEA -- deserve great credit for following these investigatory leads wherever they have gone, considering the Obama administration's preference to avoid confrontations with Hugo Chavez and his regional acolytes. For a variety of important reasons the U.S. government needs to keep pushing for more designations and indictments, not the least of which is to send an unmistakable signal that this regional backsliding on the counternarcotics front is a growing concern.

For example, in Venezuela's case, Makled claimed he had videos and other documentary evidence implicating some 40 Venezuelan generals in his illicit activities. In Bolivia, opposition members believe the Sanabria case is only the "tip of the iceberg."

The Venezuela cases in particular deserve close attention, since narco-generals like Rangel Silva and Carvajal will work to spoil any democratic transition if Chavez's health should fail him, since their protected status could not be guaranteed in a post-Chavez Venezuela. They may be presently out of the reach of the U.S. law enforcement, but the continued "naming and shaming" of the narco-generals and, even better, their indictments by the U.S. government will make them less able to carry out their nefarious crimes.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he feels "great" after another dose of chemotherapy for his as-yet-unspecified cancer. If only the Venezuelan economy was in as good shape as Chavez says he is in. In fact, what Chavez ought to explain is why his vaunted "21st Century Socialism" bears an uncanny resemblance to the garden-variety 20th century kind: replete with widespread inefficiencies, declining production, and rampant shortages.

A new study out, Gestión en rojo (Management in the Red, a play on the ubiquitous color of Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution), explains why, in part, the Venezuela economy remains in critical condition: Chavez's excessive confiscation and nationalization of private sector companies.

Convinced that profiteers, speculators, and assorted other chislers have been rooking the Venezuelan people by charging "unjust prices" for their goods and services, Chavez has ordered up the seizure of some 1,000 companies since 2002. In fact, this week, while lying in a military hospital where he is being treated, Chavez demanded that the takeover of land from Irish company Smurfit Kappa be expedited. "We have to take the last square meter of land from Smurfit," he announced on TV. "Let's move more quickly, that's an order."

It's telling how Chavez announces each nationalization with great fanfare, but then never seems to report back to anyone on what becomes of that enterprise a few years down the road.

In Gestion en rojo, three Venezuelan economists did just that, tracking the performances of 16 nationalized companies over a two-year period. The results are hardly surprising: most of the enterprises are running at only a fraction of their capacity and depend on direct government subsidies to maintain operations, if they are operating at all.

According to the lead author, Richard Obuchi, "Government ownership of companies is often accompanied by deficit problems and lack of incentives to be effective and efficient.

Add to that price controls that force companies to sell products for less than their production costs and directives that companies devote resources to overtly political initiatives and you have egregious economic dysfunction.

Chavez's problem is that he is fast running out of cash to sustain this dysfunction and all of his grandiose spending projects that fuel his popularity. Oil production -- his golden goose -- is declining, forcing him to borrow at a record pace. (According to Bloomberg, because of Chávez's anti-market policies, Venezuela already has the highest borrowing costs among major emerging-market economies.)

What all this portends for Venezuela's presidential election in 2012 remains to be seen, but it doesn't bode well for Chavez, who, despite his potentially debilitating illness, insists he will run for reelection. It may be that his working and lower class base won't care much that their country ranks 129 out of 129 economies in the 2011 International Property Rights Index or that it ranks 172 out of 183 countries in the World Bank's 2011 Doing Business Report (behind Iraq and Afghanistan).

But they will care about the shortages of basic goods, the electrical blackouts, the region's highest inflation that is cutting the value of their incomes and savings, and the mortgaging of their children's future that is the result. A reinvigorated Venezuelan opposition promises to focus on those bread-and-butter issues and Chavez will no doubt try every trick in the book to avoid discussing that record. The Obama administration needs to keep a close eye on Venezuela over the next several months, as Chavez -- if he remains healthy -- will have no qualms about tilting the playing field in an election that is looking increasingly unfavorable.

The only thing more incongruous than the Ecuadorean government's statement that they hoped that their recent expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges wouldn't harm U.S.-Ecuador relations is that the Obama administration apparently hopes it doesn't either. Days after President Rafael Correa kicked Ambassador Hodges out of the country, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño called Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela to discuss the matter (including the reciprocal expulsion of the Ecuadorean ambassador in Washington). In describing the conversation, an Ecuadorean official said the two confirmed "the political will of both parties to reach a solution to the diplomatic impasse."

The "impasse" began April 5, when Correa PNG'd Hodges over the contents of a Wikileaked cable justifying revoking the U.S. visa of the corrupt former head of the Ecuadorean National Police. In a sidebar comment, the cable noted that the official's corrupt activities were so well-known that it was unlikely Correa was unaware of them when he appointed the official to the top job. For the notoriously thin-skinned and impetuous Correa, this was too much, and Hodges was given 48 hours to leave the country.

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In the wake of this week's progress on advancing the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, it was to be expected that critics of such accords would speak up. Most of the U.S. criticism, naturally, argues that the agreement is not in the U.S. interest. Two experts from Third Way nicely dispensed with some of the misperceptions underlying common critiques earlier in the week.

Over on another corner of this site, however, Clyde Prestowitz yesterday took a different tack. He argued that the agreement was not in Colombia's interest. He writes:

I have to say that I have long wondered why Colombia's leaders have wanted to do this deal. I really don't see much in it for Colombia."

Prestowitz's logic proceeds as follows:

1. Assume free trade agreements are all about tariffs and market access.

2. Note that U.S. preference programs allow 90 percent of goods to enter the United States without paying any tariffs.

3. Conclude that Colombians have naively succumbed to "the same knee-jerk ‘free trade is always win-win' doctrine" espoused in American universities and are acting against their own self interest.

To Foreign Policy's sophisticated readership, it may seem a bit odd that a country like Colombia would devote so much time and effort to negotiating the agreement and seeking its passage without even bothering to assess the country's current market access terms. And yet, how else can we explain their behavior? What could they be thinking?

One radical approach would be to ask. A couple years back I did just that in the wake of the implementation of the U.S. FTA with Peru. There are important differences between Peru and Colombia, of course, but both enjoyed substantial access to the U.S. market under the same preference programs (Andean trade preferences). I conducted a series of interviews in Lima with those who were instrumental in negotiating the agreement, with academics, and with leaders in key sectors such as pharmaceuticals and textiles.

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It's not easy to portray an international oil company in a sympathetic light, but Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has managed to pull it off. At first blush, an Ecuadorean court's recent $8.6 billion dollar judgment against Chevron for environmental damages -- which made headlines around the world -- appears to be something out of an anthropology major's most garish fantasy: a multinational company despoils a pristine rain forest, sickening its indigenous residents, refuses to pay, and then receives its comeuppance in a court of law.

However, as one begins to strip away the layers, the case resembles more a shady attempt to shakedown a large multinational that says infinitely more about the shortcomings of Ecuadorean justice than it does about who did what to whom and who is responsible.

It would be impossible in this space to recount all the twists and turns in a case that has been in litigation for the past 18 years, but the basic facts are these: From 1964 to 1992, Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001, operated in northeastern Ecuador in a minority partnership with the state-owned oil company, Petroecuador. When the concession expired, Texaco left the country, but not before reaching a $40 million agreement with the government to clean up a portion of the area. It was then released from all future liability. Petroecuador has continued to operate in the area up until this day.

Chevron, which inherited the lawsuit when it acquired Texaco, has argued that Texaco met its obligations under the previous agreement and that any further remediation is the responsibility of Petroecuador. The plaintiffs have disavowed the agreement and assert Chevron owes billions more on behalf of Texaco, even though neither has drilled in Ecuador in almost twenty years. (Competing websites on the case can be found here and here.)

Yet for all the hoopla surrounding the case, it is unlikely that the plaintiffs will receive one cent from the judgment. It's not just that Chevron owns no assets in Ecuador, but that no responsible court anywhere in the world is likely to support seizing Chevron assets based on a verdict tainted by such flagrant political interference, judicial and plaintiff misconduct, and double standards of justice. (This week, a federal judge in New York extended a temporary order banning any collection of the judgment.)

Particularly damaging to any sense of due process in the case has been the actions of the Correa government. According to Investor's Business Daily, not only have "the plaintiffs been repeatedly caught in embarrassing acts of fraud and collusion with the Ecuadorean government and its courts," but, "It's been so bad -- an Ecuadorean judge was caught on candid camera telling plaintiffs the fix was in on his future ruling, and an ‘independent assessor' was caught on film outtakes colluding with plaintiffs -- that the entire court system is clearly compromised."

President Correa himself has been waving the bloody shirt, declaring Texaco guilty of "crimes against humanity," threatening judges with prosecution if they don't support the government's position, and offering the plaintiffs state resources to pursue their case.

Indeed, as if such flagrant trampling on the rights of the defendants were not enough, contrast the Correa government's untoward behavior in the Chevron case with that of another environmental crisis in a different part of Ecuador.

In the town of Tenguel, in the banana-growing province of Guayas, a local environmental activist, Esther Landetta, has been waging a lonely -- and dangerous -- battle against the ongoing contamination of four rivers as a result of irregular and unmonitored mining activities that have been discharging toxic waste into the waters, endangering the health of the local population and threatening their agricultural livelihoods.

Amnesty International has profiled Ms. Landetta's case as a result of the intimidation and death threats she has received for her campaign to get the government to stop the contamination of the region's rivers. Her pleas have fallen on deaf ears, however, primarily because she says the processing plant causing most of the pollution happens to be owned by a close advisor to President Correa, Galo Borja, a former Coordinating Minister for Strategic Industries and former Undersecretary of Foreign Trade.

Ms. Landetta told the Ecuadorean magazine Gestión, "I always said that, while this man (Borja) is high above in power, it will be difficult to have our rivers free of mining." She also said she secured a meeting with President Correa to discuss the matter, but that as she began to explain the problem, "He just got up and left, right in the middle of conversation. He would not hear anything."

Clearly, in Ecuador, such double standards indicate that the Correa government is less interested in seeking justice than it is in making sure the most expedient ox is gored. Attacking a huge oil multinational like Chevron makes for great politics at home and allows Correa to deflect scrutiny of his own state oil company's culpability in the matter. But turn the spotlight of justice around on the radical populist and all of a sudden they have another appointment that they forgot about. Of course, scapegoating has always been an essential part of the populist toolkit. But while targeting alleged, high-profile culprits may be entertaining to some, the resulting damage to rule of law and the interests of all Ecuadoreans is no laughing matter.

As the world's attention remains rapt with the surge of "people power" in North Africa and the Middle East toppling and threatening to topple unpopular dictators, the Brookings Institution this week hosted a panel discussion on ways the United States could better co-operate with the five-decade-old Castro dictatorship in Cuba.

Talk about a monumental case of bad timing.

Keynoting the session was former New Mexico governor and self-styled diplomatic troubleshooter Bill Richardson, who was in Cuba as recently as last August leading a trade mission of businessmen looking to cut deals with the Castro regime.  (Agricultural products are exempt from the embargo.)

Apparently oblivious to the irony of advocating normalizing relations with the Castro dictatorship even as thousands are risking their lives to oppose tyrannies elsewhere, Governor Richardson forged ahead with ways the Obama administration could improve relations with the Castro regime by lessening current U.S. sanctions.

Among them, removing Cuba from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. According to Richardson, "My view is that this terrorism list is not very consistent. It's an emotional issue." In other words, Cuba's listing lacks merit or substance.

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Nobody should have been surprised when Bolivian President Evo Morales opened the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA) in Santa Cruz, Bolivia on Nov. 22 with a one-hour stem-winder against the United States. Given his commitment to leftist populism, it would have been out of character for him to ignore his radical support base or sponsors in Cuba and Venezuela. Still, the conference was not a disaster.

In the end, ministers agreed to support a system of tracking expenditures on conventional arms in both the United Nations and the Organization of American States, to develop cooperative mechanisms to speed military aid to civil authorities in disaster response, and strengthen civilian competency in managing defense ministries. Moreover, they declined to approve Bolivia's motions condemning the United States.

Despite opportunities for incendiary rhetoric, such meetings let senior leaders talk one-on-one with counterparts about issues of mutual interest. Often, the most useful gatherings are not the droning plenaries filled with long speeches, but pull-asides outside the main hall in which decision-makers share private concerns. Since so many of these can't possibly take place through individual travels to Washington or in foreign capitals, it makes sense to take advantage of the proximity that a summit brings.

In unscripted encounters, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates undoubtedly got ear loads on a variety of sensitive topics. He also had several chances to urge agreement on matters important to the United States: counternarcotics, curbing unnecessary weapons purchases, boosting cooperation in disaster response, and strengthening the competency of civilians now working in most of the hemisphere's defense ministries -- much of which made it into the final declaration.

On all sides, participants had time to meet on specific bilateral matters, or to debate such topics as defense spending, donor-recipient relationships, and whether defense and public security missions should be combined or exist as separate functions. These conversations aid mutual awareness and often influence policy-making in neighboring capitals.

What to make of the hosts? Bolivia volunteered to hold an upcoming CDMA during the 2006 ministerial in Managua, and delegations at the eighth conference in Banff, Canada accepted its offer. Shortly thereafter, Morales cooled relations with the United States and set the stage for a tense summit by arbitrarily ejecting U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg. Still, Defense Minister Ruben Saavedra reportedly said that Bolivia wanted to improve security ties with the United States in the run-up to this year's meeting.

Thinking otherwise, President Morales began by charging that Washington had instigated coups in Bolivia, Venezuela, Honduras, and Ecuador. He called a U.S. congressman critical of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez an assassin and stated that Latin America didn't need economic aid if it involved the kind of market reforms advocated by the International Monetary Fund.

Vice President Alvaro García Linera closed the conference calling for the creation of a unified Latin American state from Mexico to Argentina to blunt the influence of Canada and the United States, as well as the establishment of a Latin American military school and separate military doctrine -- presumably reflecting Venezuelan and Cuban models.

If creating a ruckus defines success, Morales won -- judging by all of the column inches devoted to his remarks. But his was a political rant that didn't match the conference purpose, the demeanor of many of the Bolivian organizers, or the viewpoints of all participants. His one substantive input, on eliminating bank secrecy laws to target narcotics-related money laundering, failed to move.

García's statements suggested a cultural confrontation not terribly relevant to the region's more democratic governments in this era of global interdependence. They seemed uninformed given that most countries have military or police schools that already partner with neighbors and extra-hemispheric players in offering and receiving exchanges and assistance. Nor did they square with U.S. policy encouraging Latin American allies to develop leadership and self-sufficiency in security matters.

Perhaps 15 years ago, the creators of the CDMA process may have contemplated a forum that might include testy members and even hosts whose inputs would be contentious. After all, dissent helps guard against complacency and can focus participants on tasks at hand. And so it may have been that while shouts made headlines, quiet discussions were able to move the agenda forward.

Defense ministers who gathered in Santa Cruz this past week should feel proud they opted for cooperation over division. The citizens of their countries are better off for it.

Despite what you read in the newspapers, don't expect Venezuela's Sept. 26 legislative assembly elections to provide a check on President Hugo Chávez's growing dictatorial powers. Although opposition candidates have decided to participate this time (in contrast to their 2005 boycott), the deck is stacked against them. Media control, gerrymandering, and monopoly of resources could help the governing party maintain or actually increase its legislative majority, despite polls that show widespread dissatisfaction.

Absent a fair contest, the election will be another step toward a one-party state in which more levers of control are in the hands of a capricious dictator accountable to no one. And despite a recent calm in the ugly rhetoric that Chávez has been hurling toward Colombia, the fiery leader could once again aim his sights against democratic neighbors to shift attention from growing problems at home. Leaders of nearby countries should not be complacent, but rather prepare for post-election troublemaking.

Since coming to power, Chávez has limited space for opponents to communicate their views to mass audiences. In 2004, the Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television permitted the state to close private media for vaguely defined offenses. Since then, the government has shuttered the country's most popular television network and cable system, closed dozens of commercial radio stations, and threatened cable providers who refused to halt programming to broadcast his frequent, lengthy speeches on all channels. Meanwhile, the state has built up its own network of television and radio stations to disseminate official propaganda.

As in the United States, redistricting is a political tool for determining the distribution of legislative representatives. But in Venezuela, it has also become a means of restricting competition. Last January, the Chávez-dominated National Electoral Council announced it would expand districts where support for the president is strongest and merge precincts favoring opponents into pro-Chávez zones. If that doesn't assure a victory for pro-Chávez candidates, then fraud conceivably could be an option through software manipulation in the regime's voting machines.

Read on

Well, he's back. Four years after ceding power to younger brother Raul, Fidel Castro is re-commanding the spotlight inside Cuba and regaling witting foreign visitors with a series of provocative quotes that are causing headlines around the world. In other words, the regime's plan is working like a charm.

While Castro's return may be furrowing the brow of many a "Cubanologist," its meaning isn't hard to figure out: It is an act of desperation by a ruling clique unable to control a fast-moving chain of events and looking to shore up a wobbling regime facing unprecedented threats.

From the death of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo on a hunger strike (which sparked other hunger strikes by incarcerated human rights activists), to the courageous and undaunted Ladies in White weekly demonstrations in Havana, to desperately using the Catholic Church to broker the release of other jailed dissidents (which failed as a public relations ploy when the released were shipped off to exile in Spain), the brief reign of Raul Castro has been a fiasco for those vested in the regime.

Not only were events drawing heightened international scrutiny of human rights in Cuba, they were also emboldening Cuban dissidents to publicly challenge the very foundations of Cuba's police state like never before. 

The hapless Raul also displayed a marked incapacity to institute any meaningful economic reforms to save the Cuban economy from its current tailspin. In addition, the hoped-for salvation -- that the Obama administration would open the gates to U.S. tourist travel to Cuba -- shows no sign of happening anytime soon.

All this, coupled with Castro's own return from death's door, compelled the return of the Old Man to set things "right." His return conveys a message to both domestic and foreign audiences. For the Cuban people, the sight of Castro alone bedecked again in his military fatigues is meant to cow them, embodying a simple message: give up any expectations that any changes are afoot in Cuba. Things are going right back to the way they were when he left power. There will be no freedoms, no hope, no future; time to go on home.

To the international audience, the message is one of diversion, an attempt to change the subject from the very negative (and deserved) narrative of the past year. The regime knew that international media coverage of Castro's return would step all over the activities of Cuba's dissidents and human rights activists. Throw in a spot of Castro dolphin-watching with a pair of credulous foreign guests and the ruse is complete. All is well, indeed.

It remains to be seen what impact the return of Fidel Castro will ultimately have in boosting the regime's declining fortunes. What is certain is that there is no shortage of outside actors willing to aid and abet this last gasp of the regime to hold things together. Fortunately, to date, this does not include the Obama administration, which has declined to play the role countless policy critics are attempting to assign it. It is good that they remember that Cuba's future lies with those Cubans advocating for something better for their countrymen; not with a fading wraith from a bygone era.