Is the Obama administration attemptting to have its cake and eat it too in Honduras? Greg Grandin thinks so, arguing that the ideal outcome for Washington would be president Zelaya’s restoration but without his populist policies:
The State Department, though, has been more circumspect. At first it was reluctant to use the word “coup” to describe Zelaya’s overthrow, since to do so would trigger automatic sanctions, including the suspension of foreign aid and the withdrawal of US troops. Honduras hosts Soto Cano Air Force Base, the main US military base in the region, and Washington is concerned with keeping that installation fully operational. Likewise, according to John Negroponte–who as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s was implicated in the cover-up of hundreds of death-squad executions–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is working to “preserve some leverage to try and get Zelaya to back down from his insistence on a referendum” and presumably from his other populist policies.
It seems like what the United States might be angling for in Honduras could be the “Haiti Option.” In 1994 Bill Clinton worked to restore Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide after he was deposed in a coup, but only on the condition that Aristide would support IMF and World Bank policies. The result was a disaster, leading to deepening poverty, escalating polarization and, in 2004, a second coup against Aristide, this one fully backed by the Bush White House.
The ambiguity with which the American government has responded to the coup in Honduras is mirrored in such establishment barometers as the New York Times, as seen in this article on Zelaya’s attempted return last Sunday. Condescending towards Zelaya, but not very enthusiastic about the coupists either.