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.

We don't often have reason to celebrate political developments in Africa, but Michael "King Cobra" Sata's Sept. 23 victory in the recent Zambian presidential elections is a reason, indeed. The 74-year-old tough-talking opposition leader has managed to score a victory for democracy in Zambia and against Chinese neocolonialism.

Credit is due to the recent incumbent, Rupiah Banda of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy, who gave up power peacefully after a clear defeat to Sata and the Patriotic Front Party. In the aftermath of the election, both men appear determined that the peaceful change of power be accepted as normal with both retribution and sour grapes being set aside.

But a larger and more interesting issue is the fulfillment in Zambia, and in the person of the new president, of the idea that Africa should not become prey to a new colonial power, that of the Chinese. China-watchers have been observing for about a decade now the growing influence of China as it buys friends in the developing world among the producers of raw materials to feed the growing Chinese economy. A combination of Chinese party, government, military and preferred businesses have been extracting and importing raw materials -- in the case of Zambia, copper -- by means of cheap labor and sometimes abusive labor practices and with the complicity of the host country's government.

Sata was transparent about his plans and tough in his talk regarding the Chinese during his campaign for office. He called the Chinese investors "infestors" and vowed that if elected he would put an end to the flouting of labor and tax laws and other abuses, abuses that cannot happen if the government is determined to stop them. In other words, through corruption and neglect, many African governments allow foreign interests to treat their countries as easily commandeered cheap resource pools. Sata was so insistent that the Chinese threatened, in an obvious attempt to sway the election, to divest in Zambia should the people elect Sata. The people were undaunted, Sata is now elected, and there is no sign that the Chinese will make good on their threat. They can hardly afford to do so given that Zambia is the continent's largest copper exporter.

Sata has no intention of closing Zambia for business; rather, he simply is requiring that his country's labor laws and safety regulations be respected by both foreign firms as well as the government itself. He has embarked without delay on his promised 90 days of reform, sacking people and reforming the government. He sounds like he'd perform well in the current GOP debates: not only is he announcing plans to battle corruption -- that is a given for a newly elected leader in a developing country -- but he is also announcing his intention to slash the size of government. Further, he intends to review all mining contracts with the Chinese to ensure they are in the interests of Zambians and to make sure that the wealth of Zambia is shared with the nation as a whole through fair contracts, fair wages, and a distribution of wealth not encumbered with corruption, cronyism, and bloated government.

We should wish him luck and our government should support him, because he will need it, but we should be encouraged given that few African leaders have been so bold to have staked their election in part on such a program of reform. Importantly, Sata's election represents the working out of the predictions of some observers that if the Chinese, in collusion with dictators and de facto presidents for life, continued to unfairly exploit developing countries, there would be a backlash redounding to the harm of both the incumbent governments as well as the foreign interests. Those of us who have worked in foreign assistance often heard how unwise we were to let the Chinese provide visible support such as the building of infrastructure and schools while we supported the intangibles of democracy, the rule of law, fair labor practices and economic freedom. We averred that if we did the right thing, the best thing, in time the fruit of our labor would be the movement of developing states from the category of failed and dependent to stable and flourishing. I trust that we are being proven right in Zambia and that this example will spread. It is too soon to predict that a backlash is building generally across the globe against the Chinese exploiters and against aid practices that only further dependency, but the ripples of the Zambian election -- and what it could mean for development policy -- are likely to be felt beyond its borders. 

The Peruvian presidential election is over now that Keiko Fujimori has conceded defeat to Ollanta Humala, but it is clear that the country is very divided. The United States faces a period of "wait and see" regarding the winner and it is anyone's guess how he will perform: either as a force for good for Peru and for the region, or as a once and future advocate of leftist populism who erodes democracy now that he has won the presidency. This is not a small matter because U.S. interests (and those of Colombia, Brazil, and Chile) are best served by a Peru that continues to play the role that it did under Garcia as a strong advocate for free markets and free trade and one that continues to improve in terms of democracy and good governance.

Barely more than half the voters have chosen a former military official who was involved in a coup, is accused of committing human rights violations, and until his political fortunes demanded it, was a strong ally of Hugo Chavez who had planned to take Peru down the path that Chavez has forced Venezuela upon for the last ten years.

Humala had been defeated in 2006 by the pro-U.S. and pro-business Alan Garcia but Humala figured out that President Lula Da Silva of Brazil had the right approach: a leftist who promotes free market economics, trade and warmer relations with the United States, at least on international economic issues, has a better chance of being elected, not to mention helping his countrymen and not becoming a pariah like Venezuela.

Those voters who chose Humala were many of the poor and indigenous who have not seen much gain during the good times that the Garcia administration oversaw; they've also chafed at the lack of progress in combating corruption. Humala also had the support of some of those who are better off who, following the lead of intellectual and novelist Mario Vargas Llosa and former president Alejandro Toledo, voted against the daughter of a man who was corrupt and who committed human rights violations against civilians in his attempts to wipe out the Maoist Shining Path terrorist insurgents. To be sure, many poor and indigenous voted for Keiko Fujimori precisely because they remember fondly the efforts of her father to combat the Shining Path; and of course she got the majority of the votes of the middle and upper classes who don't want a new government to squelch growth and investment. Those would be the people who spent the last couple of days taking their money out of Peru before Humala takes it from them, as they suspect he will do.

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A word about Lebanon. Given everything else happening in the Middle East, it's easy to lose track of that country's plight. The last time most Americans tuned in back in January, Hezbollah -- backed by Syria and Iran -- had successfully engineered a bloodless coup, using threats of violence and intimidation to collapse the democratically-elected government of Saad Hariri and nominate its own candidate for prime minister. The fact that they chose to do so at precisely the moment that the pro-Western Hariri was being hosted in the Oval Office by President Obama only underscored the extent to which the maneuver was not simply an assault on Lebanon's democracy and independence, but a calculated effort to undermine U.S. interests and power in the Levant. For many, it looked to be the final nail in the coffin of Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, the popular uprising in 2005 that ended three decades of Syrian military occupation and brought Hariri's March 14th coalition to power. Lebanon, it appeared, had truly gone dark.

But not so fast. Bloodied and bruised, March 14th is not yet cowed. In mid-February, on the sixth anniversary of the bombing that killed his legendary father, Hariri strongly denounced Hezbollah's coup and declared that March 14th would re-constitute itself as a full-fledged opposition to the Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah project in Lebanon. He vowed to fight their effort to derail the international tribunal investigating his father's murder, which is widely expected to unveil indictments in the near future fingering Hezbollah's central role in the conspiracy. Even more daringly, Hariri recently doubled down when he announced that the disarmament of Hezbollah would be resurrected as the centerpiece of March 14th's political program to save Lebanon's democracy, sovereignty, and independence. True to his word, March 14th yesterday released "Independence 2011," a new political manifesto aimed at securing Lebanon's freedom by bringing Hezbollah's arms under state control and bringing Hariri-père's killers to justice.

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Peter Feaver is right that many voices got things wrong on Egypt at multiple points over the last couple of weeks -- especially (now former) President Mubarak himself. But this doesn't mean that everyone has been wrong. As Jackson Diehl and others have pointed out, the bipartisan Working Group on Egypt has for the past year warned repeatedly, in public and in private, and with specific policy prescriptions, of the fragility of Mubarak's rule. Moreover the Working Group stressed the urgent need for the United States to wean ourselves from exclusive reliance on Mubarak and instead extend diplomatic and material support to democracy reformers in Egypt. As I have noted before, the White House should have seen this coming.

The United States has lost significant ground in Egypt over the past few weeks, by repeatedly failing to get out in front with a clear, united, and public message of support for democracy and against Mubarak's continued misrule. This amounts to a missed opportunity by President Obama to assure the Tahrir Square protestors of U.S. support, and of the entire administration to extend crucial economic and diplomatic support for Egyptian democracy activists over the last two years. As Jake Tapper and Glenn Kessler documented, the Obama Administration's record on this count is a failure, most crucially in its drastic budget cuts and abdication of the Bush administration's policy of providing support directly to democratic opposition groups.

In the midst of today's exuberance over Mubarak's departure, as the White House wrestled with what to say and do next, it should realize that just as important as specific statements and policies will be demonstrating to the people of Egypt, that the United States will partner with them in creating a better future for themselves. President Obama's eloquent statement today struck all the right notes, but he has offered the right words on behalf of democracy before -- it is the deeds that have been wanting.  

Specifically, this means holding the Egyptian military accountable for ruling temporarily while staying committed to a specific timetable for nationwide elections, and offering full-fledged diplomatic and economic support for Egypt's beleaguered political parties in preparation for the elections. It will also mean renewed efforts on behalf of legal protections for civil liberties like freedom of speech and freedom of religion -- which also serve as institutional bulwarks against the undemocratic inclinations of the Muslim Brotherhood. A new poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy offers  encouraging findings that only 15 percent of Egyptians approve of the Brotherhood, and only 12 percent want sharia law. Egyptian soil is fertile for the growth of democracy.

What might this mean in history? It is impossible to say. But as I note today over at ConservativeHomeUSA, Feb. 11 also marks the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which unleashed many of the maladies that afflict the Middle East today. It is a telling contrast between the two revolutions that Iran today arrested more opposition leaders and blocked media reporting on Egyptians dancing to their freedom in the streets. We can hope that Egypt's revolution will give a new meaning to Feb. 11. Yet hope is not a policy, as the saying goes, and so the administration should be working now to craft a bold policy that bolsters democracy in Egypt, and helps the Egyptian people turn Feb. 11 into a notable date on the calendar of liberty.  

Events in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and to a lesser extent Jordan have led both administration officials and the chattering classes to conclude that democracy is on the march in the Middle East. Having once again been caught by surprise by events overseas -- one wonders where our intelligence agencies have been hiding -- the Obama administration is now trying to push itself into the forefront of those seeking democratic change in the region.

Yet it was not democracy that led a young Tunisian to immolate himself and, apart from English-speaking educated intellectuals, it does not appear that democracy is what most people have been demonstrating about. Instead, what they are seeking, first and foremost, is economic opportunity unfettered by corruption and favoritism. Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire because he was prevented from earning a modest living. Three Egyptians have burned themselves because of lack of job opportunities. 

Secondly, Tunisians and Egyptian appear to be seeking responsive government, which is quite different from Western notions of democracy. In fact, it is arguable that they and other demonstrators in the Arab world would be quite comfortable living under a Chinese-style system, where there is a high and consistent level of economic growth and standards of living continue to rise. Would Tunisia have overthrown Ben Ali if its economy grew, as it had in the 1990s, and if the President's family curbed their greed? Would Mubarak be in the trouble he is now if he had a far greater percentage of the population benefitting from Egypt's economic growth?

It is noteworthy that for all the talk of upheavals in the Arab world, there has so far been little unrest in the traditional Gulf emirates or in Saudi Arabia. The rulers of the smaller Gulf States have long made it their policy to distribute wealth widely among their citizens. (Non-citizens don't count, of course. And if they made any trouble they would be deported.) Despite predictions of their imminent demise over the past two decades, the Saudis likewise have so far remained quiet. The al-Saud family recognized some ten years ago that it needed to spread more wealth to ensure the support of its increasingly younger population; so far so good.

Even Bahrain, which might have been expected to be the scene of riots, given the secondary status of the majority Sh'ia population, has not witnessed any major demonstrations. Again, most of the Bahraini Sh'ia appear to recognize that a stable Bahrain means more wealth for them too -- even if they do not achieve economic parity with the dominant Sunnis. They also know that Saudi tanks are not far from the causeway that links their state to its much larger and more powerful neighbor, and that those tanks would be quick to cross into the island kingdom if the ruling family came under siege.

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In kayaking, you can choose one of two types of stability, but you cannot have both. A flat-bottomed kayak has high "initial stability" -- it appears to ride smoothly in the water, with little rocking back and forth. But it has low "final stability" -- in rough seas, it tends to quickly and catastrophically capsize. An angled-bottom kayak is just the opposite. With low initial stability, it takes more effort to guide and is prone to constant shifts from side to side. But these kayaks are faster and more efficient, and their high final stability means that they remain upright in stormy seas, and can recover even when turned nearly upside down.

Things are not so different with democracies and dictatorships. Democracy is messy -- look at the United States, where in the last five years alone we have experienced swings from right to left and back again, and where political discourse can often be raucous. Dictatorships, on the other hand, often possess a superficial stability -- until they reach the tipping point, which often comes more quickly than expected. Such was the case in Tunisia, which seemed an oasis of calm until a small spark quickly grew to consume the longstanding rule of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

Dictatorships lack the self-righting mechanisms and institutions which provide democracies with their deep stability. Free expression, free assembly, multiple and accountable political parties, free and fair elections, and independent courts -- all of these form the vital structure of a democracy and provide an outlet for people's grievances. In a dictatorship, people are denied these outlets and anger simmers beneath the surface, occasionally bursting through society's calm veneer in violent fashion.

These two broad categories -- democracies and dictatorships -- are of course an oversimplification. In reality there is a full spectrum of political and civil liberties along which countries fall. Egypt is not Tunisia. But it is perhaps not so far off. Freedom House gave Tunisia its worst score for political rights, and Egypt scored just one point better. In the civil rights category, the countries received the same score. In understanding the contrasting U.S. and international response to unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, perhaps the most relevant difference between the two is not culture or politics, but the strategic importance of each to the United States.

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There are a thousand stories in an election of this magnitude and perhaps ten thousand prisms through which to analyze it. Here is one of particular parochial interest to me: How did the candidates who had a distinctive voice on civil-military relations (one of my academic specialties) fare?

I counted seven such candidates, four of whom prevailed:

• Democrat Ike Skelton, the current House chair of the Armed Services Committee, lost his re-election race in Missouri's 4th district, as I have already posted. He was one of the most thoughtful members of Congress on civil-military issues, regardless of party. I did not always agree with him, but I always learned something from him.
• Charlie Rangel was re-elected in New York's 15th congressional district. He is better known in the media for his quotability and, of late, his ethical difficulties. But for those of us who follow civil-military relations closely, he is known as the most ardent supporter of reviving the military draft. In my view, his devotion to the draft was partly sincere and partly as a way of expressing opposition to President Bush's national security policies. But I am somewhat in his debt because his efforts directed a small but steady stream of reporters my way asking for comment on the impact of a draft on the so-called gap between the military and U.S. society, and on the propensity to use force.
• Democratic candidate for Senate Joe Sestak lost in Pennsylvania. This was one of the most closely watched races in the country. There were two civil-military angles. First, Sestak, a retired vice-admiral, was the highest ranking military officer in Congress and an important voice on defense issues in the Democratic Party. There are still a few defense-minded Senators left in the Democratic Party (Dianne Feinstein from California, Carl Levin from Michigan, Jack Reed from Rhode Island, and Jim Webb from Virginia, and some others), but there are fewer today than there were yesterday. Second, he wrote an interesting Ph.D. dissertation on civil-military relations and the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet that I found very helpful when I was doing my own research. (Yes, it is possible to be this parochial while analyzing an election of such national significance. In fact, I can get even more parochial… keep reading).
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While U.S. voters were not particularly interested in foreign policy (certainly not Asia policy) during this election, Asia is always interested in U.S. voters. The economic growth of countries such as China and India, and the technological and innovative dynamism of much of the rest of Asia, are significantly impacting the structure of the U.S. economy. Newly elected Republicans have a chance to help the United States continue to benefit from Asia's growing prosperity.

Though the election was not about foreign policy, it is worth noting that former Vice President Dick Cheney's early 2009 critique of Obama's counter-terrorism policies first exposed the chinks in the administration's armor, demonstrating signs of life for a Republican Party declared dead and providing moral support to others in his party who soon voiced their own powerful critiques. Still, this election was about economics and the size and structure of government, not foreign policy. So, I am about to practice economics and politics without a license.

While voters still do not seem to trust the GOP, the party can regain their trust by reclaiming the mantle of economic leadership. Newly-elected Republicans can insist upon free market, pro-free trade policies that can push the president to create a friendlier climate for foreign investment in the United States as well as to ratify a free trade deal with South Korea and pry open other Asian markets for U.S. investment and exports.

By committing to fiscal responsibility, Republicans can provide a more credible case for the global rebalancing that economists agree needs to happen. A collective economic rebalancing, rather than a trade war or legislating punitive tariffs, is the answer to our current economic troubles with China. And a broader commitment to U.S. leadership in trade liberalization throughout Asia will contribute to setting the United States back on the road to economic growth and low unemployment.

But the United States is on the horns of a dilemma in Asia, one that new Republican leaders must resolve. Our huge debt and uncertain fiscal position calls into question our ability to sustain a robust diplomatic and military presence in the region; if fiscal austerity includes cuts to the defense budget, Asians will continue to conclude that we are not going to be present in Asia for the long haul. In the context of Asia policy, then, the key challenge for Republican leaders both in Congress and aspiring to the presidency is to strike the right balance between pursuing long-term measures to restore fiscal health without making short-term cuts on defense spending that create deep regional unease.

The first chance for Republicans to reconcile long and short term goals with respect to Asia is during Obama's trip to the region. They should pledge to work with him if he agrees to ratify the FTA with Korea, hold his feet to the fire if he panders to special interests on the issue of outsourcing to India (or what I like to call trading based on comparative advantage), and pledge to support him if he commits to keeping our alliances strong by making the military investments we need to keep the region stable.

The midterm election results were a strong rebuke of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party's stewardship of political power, but they turned almost entirely on domestic issues, not foreign policy. Therefore, the foreign-policy implications of the election are likely to be indirect rather than direct.

Even when foreign-policy issues are an important factor in a midterm election -- think the public dissatisfaction with the Iraq War that helped fuel Democratic gains in 2006 -- it does not necessarily translate into a predictable change on those issues. The new Democratic-controlled Congress believed they had a mandate to force a rapid retreat from Iraq in 2007 and they tried very hard to impose that policy on the Bush administration. Former President George W. Bush interpreted the 2006 election as a partial rebuke of his Iraq policy, but opted for the opposite response, the surge, and very narrowly kept the surge alive long enough to show results on the ground. Democrats came very close to thwarting the surge in the summer of 2007, but they failed in their effort. Implication: A highly resolved president can prevail on a foreign-policy issue even against a highly motivated oppositional Congress.

The next Congress may well be oppositional, but it will not be singularly motivated on a foreign-policy issue. For starters, there is no clear foreign-policy mandate coming out of the election. So far as I can determine, exit polls asked about only two foreign-policy issues: Afghanistan and the recent attempted terrorist attack.  Interestingly, of those voters who ranked these issues at the very top of their list of concerns, Democrats won: 57 percent-41 percent in favor of Democrats on Afghanistan and 55 percent -43 percent on the recent terrorist attempt. But only small portions of the electorate considered these their top issues: 8 percent on Afghanistan and 9 percent on terrorism.

But elections have consequences, and even though the consequences will be more dramatic on domestic policy issues, there will nevertheless be discernible implications for foreign policy. Here are three quick ones: 

• President Obama will face an even more difficult time mobilizing Democrats to support his war policies. A majority of voters (54 percent) said they disapproved of the Afghanistan war and an even larger majority of those disapprovers (61 percent) voted Democrat. Obama is even more reliant on Republican support for his war in Afghanistan than he was this past year. Moreover, the departure of national security moderate Democrats from the House of Representatives combined with the freedom that being a minority party grants means that the Democratic caucus in the House will likely be even more stridently anti-war.  
• Democrats lost their most respected voice on national security, Congressman Ike Skelton of Missouri. Some respected voices remain in the House, notably Jane Harman of California, but this election reverses a trend that could be traced to the party's response to the 9/11 attacks: the cultivation of a "strong on national security" wing among House Democrats. Skelton was uniquely respected on both sides of the aisle, in particular because he devoted time and effort to issues that were significant in a larger strategic sense but not hot-button electoral issues, such as professional military education, interservice rivalry, or the development of grand strategy. It will be harder to forge strong bipartisan positions on national security without more strong national security moderate voices from the Democratic side of the aisle.
• President Obama is likely to prioritize foreign-policy issues more in the next two years than he did in the previous two years. Obama faces the prospect of compromising with Republicans in order to get things done on domestic policy or focusing attention on areas where he can do what he wants while ignoring Congress. He may well choose the latter. The president's long trip to Asia could be both a symbol and a harbinger of this approach. There are plenty of foreign policy concerns to preoccupy him and he will certainly have a higher success rate of prevailing over Republicans on foreign policy than on domestic policy.

Bottom line: While foreign policy was not a front-burner issue in the run-up to the midterm elections, it could well re-emerge as a front-burner and contentious issue in very short order.

Absent a surprise showing of "Dewey Defeats Truman" proportions by Democrats, Republicans are very likely to take control of the House of Representatives as a result of Tuesday's midterm elections. A takeover of the Senate is less likely but also possible. I have speculated previously on what a GOP Congress might mean for President Barack Obama's national security policy (CliffsNotes version: The White House should be happy, because a Republican House will be more supportive of the Afghan war and would advocate a tougher posture towards Iran).

But what of the people who will actually comprise the new House majority? Foreign-policy issues have not played any significant role in this election (other than the Obama White House's ham-handed and scurrilous accusations of "foreign money" supporting Republican campaigns), in which jobs, the economy, and the deficit are voters' main concerns. Most new Representatives will enter office with little foreign policy experience -- with the notable exception of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress. These vets -- who will join several other Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom vets already serving in the House -- won't necessarily take the same positions on Iraq, Afghanistan, and national security. However, they will influence Congressional policy debates in at least two ways: bringing with them the credibility and insight gained from their firsthand experiences in theater, and through the informal networks they maintain with their military colleagues who are still deployed who can pass along back-channel assessments of front-line conditions.

More prominent in the shaping of congressional policy are the committee chairs. Committees are where the nuts and bolts of congressional business get done, such as hearings, and developing and moving legislation. And the chairs of each committee have considerable authority over its operations, including all-important hiring of staff, holding oversight hearings, shaping the content of bills, and deciding when and how to move legislation forward. Committee chairs are mostly determined by seniority, but the GOP Caucus and leadership play a key role and must approve all new chairs. So while no particular chair appointment is certain, here's a look at the likely new GOP chairs of key foreign policy related House committees:

• Foreign Affairs: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Florida). A Cuban-American, Ros-Lehtinen has long been a vocal critic of the Castro regime, and will be in a strong position to scrutinize and resist any potential softening by the Obama administration on Cuba. But Cuba is by no means her only issue. Ros-Lehtinen is a savvy, experienced legislator who would likely focus on ways to strengthen anti-WMD proliferation policies, increase pressure on rogue regimes such as Iran, Syria, and Sudan, and elevate democracy promotion efforts. She is also a strong supporter of Israel.
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Nouri al-Maliki appears close to a deal that will put Iraq's Shi'ia parties in power. After seven months of political wrangling, it would be tempting to believe that any government formed by Iraq's squabbling political leaders is progress. It is not.

The political slate that garnered the most seats in the parliamentary elections, Ayad Allawi's non-sectarian bloc, ought to have had the first shot at forming a government. Prime Minister Maliki's manipulations of electoral commission findings and superseding of judicial decisions accrued that advantage instead to his second-place finish.

Even with the advantages of incumbency in a system newly empowered and without strong legal constraints, Maliki has been unable to cobble together a coalition. Other parties fear a "soft coup" of Maliki consolidating power and have been unwilling to join a government with him as prime minister.

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's participation in the 10th anniversary meeting of the Community of Democracies in Krakow, Poland, serves as a needed reminder of the parlous environment for democratic governance across the globe. Tom Melia of Freedom House says we are in the midst of "a global political recession." Secretary Clinton invoked Winston Churchill and said, "We must be wary of the steel vise in which many governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit."

This is in stark contrast to the heady days when the democratic wave that began in Asia, swept through the captive nations of the former Soviet Union, culminating in the Americas with the 2001 signing of the Inter-American Democratic Charter which committed all countries in our hemisphere (save Cuba) to not only democratic governance, but protecting it wherever it was threatened in the region.

But, as we've seen, autocrats are an enterprising lot. They never went away; they either laid in wait or adapted. Especially in our own hemisphere, we have seen how autocrats like Hugo Chavez have used the mechanics of democracy to get elected and then run roughshod over democratic institutions that separate powers or protect the rights of the minority. They pervert the concept of democracy further, claiming that their victories at the ballot box (real or manipulated) somehow entitle them to rule as they see fit, as arbitrary and capricious as that might be.

But if Secretary Clinton wants to employ Churchillian rhetoric, then the Obama administration needs to commit to significant action in support of those words. Her announcement of $2 million to support the work of embattled civil society groups and nongovernmental organizations around the world today is a start, but it is simply not enough.

It is imperative that the administration apply the full measure of its political support to U.S. democracy assistance programs, which range from everything to electoral support and monitoring, to party building, to good governance programs that emphasize transparency and accountability. These programs are not without controversy in certain precincts and are attacked vociferously, mostly by the autocrats themselves, but also by critics who want to equate them with "interfering" in other countries' affairs. Yet most democrats in dire situations abroad are desperate for the support.

Still, the career bureaucracy's default mode is to avoid conflict and that is why the implementing agencies of U.S. democracy assistance programs -- USAID and the State Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor -- need to know how important they are to the administration (increased budgets would also be a nice indicator) and that they are expected to get this support to those who need it most and without bureaucratic delay.

Of course there are risks, as last December's arrest of American Alan Gross in Cuba attests, but the stakes are not insignificant. We support democracy abroad because it has proven to be the best system to maximize human prosperity and happiness, but also because it is in the interest of our own security. Freedom and opportunity tends to channel people's energies to productive pursuits, not flying airplanes into skyscrapers.

It is therefore incumbent upon the United States to carry the democratic banner forward in this hostile world. Because if not us, then who? 

Things aren't getting any easier for Hugo Chavez's clients in Latin America. Although the final results for Bolivia's recent gubanatorial and mayoral elections won't be known until April 24, it appears that President Evo Morales's efforts to break the back of his opposition have fallen short. While Morales appears to still control at least five of the nine governorships in Bolivia, the opposition held strong in their traditional resource-rich bastions of Santa Cruz, Beni, and Tarija. One governorship still remains too close to call.

Stinging too were the losses of the mayorships in seven of the country's 10 major cities, including the capital La Paz, where a one-time ally of Morales won after breaking with his ruling MAS party.

Morales was visibly displeased with the results, which came after months of bullying and repressing the opposition, straight from the playbook of his patron Chavez. Clearly, he was hoping to deal a death-blow to the already battered opposition, the only remaining obstacle to Morales's aspiration to "refound" Bolivia based on a bizarre mix of retro-indigenous mythology, socialism, and coca-growing.

After half-heartedly claiming victory, Morales returned to form by threatening criminal proceedings against election officials in the four provinces that his party didn't win on charges of perpetrating "fraud."

Like Chavez, Morales still enjoys national popularity -- he easily won re-election in December 2009, will remain in office until 2014, and holds a comfortable majority in congress -- but the results of this election demonstrate that his support may be wide but it is not deep and that many Bolivians are not keen to give him the sort of carte blanche that Chavez snookered Venezuelans into providing him in recent years.

But despite the electoral setback, it would be a mistake to believe Morales will back down in any way. His next maneuver is orchestrating Bolivia's first-ever election for high court justices, which critics understandably see as a way to give a patina of legality to his authoritarian bent.

What do Morales's autocratic machinations mean for the United States? It's true that Bolivia is a poor, landlocked country with little U.S. investment amidst a crowded field of international issues competing for the Obama administration's attention. And the administration has rightfully shown no urgency in sending an ambassador there since Morales ordered the unceremonious expulsion in 2007 of well-respected, career diplomat Phillip Goldberg, under the absurd pretext that Goldberg's previous posting in the Balkans meant his assignment in Bolivia was to break up the country into disparate parts.

But threats to Bolivian democracy deserve U.S. attention not only because of the tremendous investment over the years by the United States in supporting democracy and rule of law in the Americas, but also because the Bolivian people, who have suffered perhaps more than any in the hemisphere at the hands of colonial exploitation, deserve better than their current lot. They need leaders looking to the future, who embrace globalization, and can leverage Bolivia's vast natural resources into real growth and prosperity, not the current crop who care only about nursing historical grievances and following the same old failed statist policies of the past.