Michael Shifter
Michael Shifter
Michael Shifter is President of the Inter-American Dialogue and an Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the Council's journal Foreign Affairs. He is also a member of the Latin American Studies Association, and a contributing editor to Current History...
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When you have that amount of concentrated power, bad things tend to happen.
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There has been a sense that Latin America can take care of itself, but Washington needs to start repairing the tattered relations.
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Those words must have been welcome to anxious business groups, who feared a fiercely confrontational tone. He hit some conciliatory notes.
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But now the test is, 'Can he follow through?' ... Ultimately, he will face real decisions.
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It's still a big question how he's going to govern. Clearly if he wants to be a successful president, he doesn't want the same fate as some of his predecessors.
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It looks like we are headed for a collision. Chavez realizes that the U.S. doesn't have an idea of how to deal with him.
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It's given new life, and of course great resources, to this fear that's hung around Washington for decades, of (Cuba) exporting revolution.
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The two countries are locked in a situation of mutual dependence at an economic level because of oil, while being locked in a massive clash, a lot of rhetoric.
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It remains unclear how pragmatic Morales will actually be once in office, and whether he'll be able to strike the formula of accommodating both his base and national and foreign capital that have a strong stake in Bolivia's economy. Finding that balance will pose the most severe test of Morales's political skills.
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The possibility we'll have another Chavez acolyte in Peru represents a serious challenge to the economic model and a threat to democracy.
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There is a risk that such an idea will be seen as led by the U.S., or if the U.S. was seen as coordinating or directing it, ... That is problematic and could produce a strong reaction in Central America.
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Unless Flores embarks on ... social reform aimed at addressing the country's exclusion and inequality, political unrest could mount during her presidency.
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With this move, he risks alienating natural and otherwise sympathetic partners like Brazil and Spain. Ordering the military to seize the natural gas fields is unnecessarily confrontational and antagonistic.
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The fact that he is going is a credit to him, because there was a lot of speculation he wouldn't,