Internet Scofflaw

There’s been a lot confusion (at least on my part) about what the Honduras deal actually means, but the latest news makes it clear that the deal is a complete win for Honduras.

Honduras agrees to vote on whether to reinstate Zelaya, and the US State Department agrees to recognize Honduras’s upcoming elections regardless of the outcome of the reinstatement vote. In fact, Honduran congressional leaders are hinting that they may not even have the vote on reinstatement until after the elections.

Bottom line:

“We’ve made our position on President Zelaya and his restitution clear. We believe he should be restored to power,” [State Department spokesman Ian] Kelly said. “Our focus now is on implementing this process and creating an environment wherein Hondurans themselves can address the issue of restitution and resolve for themselves this Honduran problem.”

The deal left reinstatement in the hands of Congress, but hours after shaking hands, Zelaya and others indicated a behind-the-scenes arrangement had been made with Congress to reinstate him. . . His comments, and U.S. approval of the deal, left many believing Congress was ready to put him back in office. . .

Juan Carlos Hidalgo, project coordinator for Latin America at Washington-based Cato Institute, said he doesn’t expect Hondurans to be swayed by U.S. pressure.

“If Congress doesn’t reinstate Zelaya, it certainly will be a diplomatic embarrassment for the United States since they pressured so much for his reinstatement and even threatened to not recognize the election results,” said Hidalgo. “But not recognizing a popular vote was a dead-end road for the U.S. and they knew it.

(Via Hot Air.)

UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin:

The bottom line: the Obama team picked the wrong horse, found itself in a diplomatic dead end, found a mechanism to abandon its failed gambit, and now supports elections — the very position that the Honduran interim government and the administration’s critics have been urging from the beginning.

(Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: Perhaps I spoke too soon.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Geopolitical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.