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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
York Post.
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 Latins
Limp Left
Administration shouldn't overreact...
[Ralph
Peters] 12/21/05
Looks like
the voters of Bolivia have chosen Evo Morales as their next pres idente. Evo's
a pro-narco pal of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. His campaign
included a pledge to become "America's nightmare."
What on
earth should we do?
Nothing.
The dumbest thing Washington could do would be to overreact
and make yet another populist demagogue a hero. Bluster and
threats only help our enemies.
Anti-Americanism
is dying — it just happens to be a loud, slow death. The old
blame-America excuses are growing thin. Left alone, the latest
wave of Yanqui-go-homers will fade after they fail to
live up to their promises. But with enough attention from Washington,
they could hang on indefinitely. We made Fidel Castro a giant
through our clumsiness. And we didn't learn. We did the same
thing with Hugo Chavez, threatening to huff and puff and blow
his casa down. The effect was to give him a hemispheric
stage on which to strut.
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Now there's
a third amigo. Let's not do this one any favors by calling
him names.
In Washington,
it's tough to do nothing, since there's a lobby for everything.
But sometimes nothing is exactly what we should do. Any signs
of administration hysteria will play into Morales' hands.
There are
lessons in Bolivia's choice of an Aymara-Indian populist over
a white-bread technocrat (not least that indigenous populations
are determined to have a voice). But they aren't the lessons
the sky-is-falling crowd will draw.
The momentary
leftward shuffle in Latin America — in Argentina, Brazil and
coming-to-a-Mexico-near-you — masks deeper shifts that will
ultimately improve the region's future, if at a frustrating
pace. We've kept the left alive by denouncing it. Now we need
to stand back and let it collapse.
Interference
hasn't worked. Let's let 'em live and learn.
Don't worry too much
about Chavez or Morales. The oil money of the first and the
potential natural-gas income of the second seem like strategic
threats, but they're really just nuisances.
Are we going
to see some mischief from those muchachos? Yep. But
they'll mostly hurt their own people.
Take Chavez:
Instead of diversifying Venezuela's economic base, he's throwing
petrodollars around like a drunk Saudi prince in Vegas. He
funded Morales' campaign, he's buying weapons in bulk and he's
cuddling every anti-American in town.
And what
becomes of the people of Venezuela? Helped by oil-price spikes,
Chavez has made some short-term improvements in the
lives of the poor — like Morales, he came to power because
the old guard (which we favored) disregarded the masses. But
he's not concentrating on the roots of his country's squalor.
Instead, he's squandering its future in the great Latin tradition.
The oil
and natural-gas boom is only the latest to excite extravagant
hopes down south, while deforming states and economies. Latin
America has been the victim of boom-and-bust cycles for centuries,
from the colonial-era silver boom, through a tin boom, a beef
boom, a coffee boom, a cocaine boom and now an oil-and-gas
boom.
This boom
will end exactly as every other one has: With some fancy buildings,
some private fortunes — and most of the people still living
in slums.
There is
no substitute for constructing diversified economies. Latin
America has often been the victim of sudden, single-source
wealth that precluded broad development.
Yet, there is hope — if
not for Venezuela or Bolivia. Remember the panic when Lula
the Leftie became president of Brazil? And what happened? Brazil's
expanding economy gave business leaders sufficient clout to
rein in most excesses (if not corruption — Latin America's
leading sport, ahead of soccer and polo).
Instead
of becoming a Marxist paradise, Brazil is stomping forward
to become a regional great power. If you've taken a commuter
flight, you've probably flown in an aircraft built in Brazil — with
technology that China still can't match.
Argentina's
been a disappointment, with a left-wing president who plays
pathetic chords from the country's past. He profited briefly
from a cyclical upturn, but half the population remains
below the poverty line.
Argentina's
latest tragedy was fake capitalism. In the 1990s, President
Carlos Menem ran one of the most corrupt regimes on the continent
and called it a free-trade, market economy. Now capitalism
has a bad name in Buenos Aires — but the Argentines never tried
it. Without the rule of law, it ain't capitalism, folks.
Meanwhile,
successive generations of Latin Americans have become better
educated and the brighter lights in the business communities
no longer cry out for protectionism above all else. Much mental
and moral debris remains, from morbid bureaucracies to recurrent
political charlatanism, but the states that build diversified
economies are going to outperform the socialist utopias — Latin
America isn't an exception to the rule that socialism sounds
great, but can't deliver.
The populations
will see it, up close and personal. But if we interfere, we'll
get the blame.
Consider
the good news: Despite Chavez's meddling, Colombia has come
back from its political, economic and security near-death experience.
Chile's economy has developed to the point that it will motor
on even with salon socialists in power. Exposed to life in el
norte, Mexicans no longer passively accept political monopolies
and endless demands for bribes. In Brazil, Lula has been distancing
himself from Chavez and Castro.
Let's live
up to our promises. We claim to support democracy. That means
we sometimes have to accept results that we don't like — such
as those in Bolivia or Venezuela (or even in Iraq). Just be
patient and let the demagogues fail. Don't give them an excuse
to blame us when their swagger starts to stagger.
We can't
be the hemisphere's nanny, scolding every time an electorate
skins its knees. Suffering teaches the only lessons that stick.
Latin Americans have learned the hard way that government by
oligarchs or the military doesn't work. Now they need to feel
the weight of a few last leftist dinosaurs.
If the East
Germans couldn't make socialism work, does anybody really want
to bet on the Bolivians? -one-
Ralph Peters'
latest book is New
Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2005 - NY Post
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