Reds in Retreat
Latin lefty thugs look to Obama to save them
WILL the current collapse of Latin American hardleft governments next reach their patron saints, the Castro brothers? The recent trifecta of leftist losses in Argentina, Brazil and most spectacularly Venezuela — where the opposition party this week won a large majority — points to a new trend in a region that has for so long embraced revolution.
And, surprise, the only hope left for these regimes may be a lifeline from a perennial butt of their ire: us.
Mauricio Macri will assume Argentina’s presidency today. On Oct. 25, he defeated Daniel Scioli, the leftist successor to Cristina Kirchner, who succeeded her husband, Nestor, in 2007. The couple ran the country’s economy into the ground for 12 years, cozying up to bad actors from Caracas to Tehran. Macri won because he promised to turn away from government controls to a marketoriented economy, and to bring back press and other freedoms that the Kirchners took away.
In Brazil, legislators started impeachment procedures last week against lefty President Dilma Rousseff, accusing her of cooking the books to make the economy look good. The procedure was briefly halted Monday, but it’s widely supported.
Rousseff ’s mentor and predecessor, Lula da Silva, may have talked a strong leftist game, but he ruled from the center. Rousseff didn’t, and she’ll soon be tossed out of office one way or another.
Leftist ideologues elsewhere in the hemisphere are in various degrees of trouble, but the most stinging loss happened Sunday, when the Venezuelan regime soundly lost a parliamentary election.
Like elsewhere in the region, where strongmen relied far too much on commodities to finance patronage, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is reeling under the collapse of oil prices.
It’s easy to buy voters’ support when your vast oil reserves sell for $90 a barrel. Much harder to afford it at the current rate, under $40 a barrel.
That price collapse — complete with 200 percent inflation (and growing), lack of basic food items and anarchy in the streets — was swift, turning off even the most ardent Chavista.
And this is where the Castros come in.
Maduro became Havana’s man in Venezuela, where his predecessor, Hugo Chavez — who since 1999 used Venezuela’s oil to prop up “Bolivarian revolutions” across the region — died in 2013. Maduro reliably maintained the HavanaCaracas codependency, based on a simple tradeoff: Venezuela averts the collapse of Cuba’s economy by subsidizing its energy needs; Cuba sends physicians and security personnel to Venezuela.
But on Sunday regime opponents won more than twothirds of the seats in the National Assembly — enough to begin the process of unseating Maduro. The new powers oppose the Cuba arrangement: Why give away a natural resource? More importantly, where’s the promised security? Crime rates in Venezuela are at an alltime high.
In reality, Cuban security personnel suppress any form of criticism, jailing top political challengers (like Leopoldo Lopez) and keeping all wouldbe “trouble makers” in line.
That arrangement is good for Latin America’s worst leftist caudillos, but bad for everyone else.
Unless President Obama throws them a lifeline.
Cuba’s unsustainable Commu nist system recently got a shot in the arm when Obama renewed relations with Havana. But the promised trade between Cuba and the United States has yet to materialize.
So for now, the Castros’ prestige may have been boosted by Obama. But “you can’t eat that stuff,” says Jorge Castaneda, a longtime region watcher and former Mexican foreign minister, whose political autobiography, “Amarres Perros,” is making waves across the region (except in Cuba).
As the economy tanks further, Cubans look to escape the island. And unless Donald Trump erects a sea wall, tens of thousands will soon wash ashore in Miami. To prevent such a spectacle, Castaneda says, Obama may soon start leaning on Venezuela’s victorious opposition to continue the oil subsidies to Cuba.
Yes, that same sinister arrangement that Venezuela’s antiChavistas are so eager to end.
So there you have it: Over the weekend, Venezuela’s Maduro typically blamed America and other foreign powers for his loss. But his hold on power (and Castro’s, and the remaining hardleftists) can be aided, at least in the short run, by an American president who fears a wave of refugees in an election year.
And that’s how Obama may end up prolonging the hemisphere’s worst, dying regimes.