Obama's Honduras' gambit has tested the reach and scope of the Obama "change"

by Andrew Taylor

The decision by the Obama administration to keep the Honduras coup in place is a warning to every present and future democratically elected leftwing government in the Hemisphere: Obama's Honduras' gambit has tested the reach and scope of the Obama "change". Obama will not be trusted by any Latin American government but Honduran-style coup plotters - and for very good reason. He has been weakened. This is a concrete political reality learned today by Latin America. He is not estimable.

This is the end of the "Obama honeymoon" for the global left. US foreign policy may have a new 'tone' and beautifully nuanced expressions of democratic sentiments under President Obama, but US interests remain the same in terms of intolerance of the Left . The people and left forces of Venezuela and Bolivia and Ecuador and Nicaragua and El Salvador will form an opinion of these events of today. It pushes forces in the Americas leftward, since, with Obama's new policy of engagement in tatters, all on the left now know that any reforms that threaten the interests of the oligarchy can be reversed at gunpoint and "Hope" and "Change" is an impotent phrase, a game for children...