by Francisco Toro
The New Republic, July 31, 2009

More than one month after the coup in Honduras, the Obama administration’s quiet-but-canny diplomacy is starting to pay off. The New York Times reports that de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, has agreed, for the first time, to restore the mercurial-if-democratically-elected Mel Zelaya to the presidency, albeit with tightly circumscribed powers. Micheletti’s U-Turn comes just days after careful, back-channel American diplomacy (reportedly through U.S. congressional staff rather than the State Department) secured a sweeping statement from the Honduran military pledging its “unrestricted support” for the Oscar Arias-led mediation efforts.

Now Zelaya–who had already started to organize a “people’s army” to take back his office by force–is faced with an unsavory choice: Does he serve out his term respecting his office’s limited powers and giving up any hope to subvert the constitution to stay in power longer, or does he strike off on his own, and try to advance the chavista vision of unlimited presidential power by breaking decisively with his constitutional mandate?

By ensuring that Zelaya’s choice is presented in those terms, U.S. diplomacy has entirely shifted the dynamics of the Honduran crisis, outflanking the chavista block in the process. All of a sudden, to back the democratically elected president’s return to power is to reject the vision of unlimited presidential power that first led chavismo to rally behind Zelaya. And the authoritarian left, which had invested so much in the Honduran crisis, finds itself able to advance its vision only by declaring open war on Honduras’ broader democratic institutions.

It took meticulous behind-the-scenes diplomatic work to get this far, and the deal could still unravel. The Arias plan faces powerful enemies, both from conservatives within Honduras and from authoritarian leftists in the Venezuelan-led ALBA block. For now, however, the State Department can take pride in coming much closer to squaring the Honduran circle than seemed possible even 24 hours ago. The U.S. has positioned itself as the prime mover behind efforts to restore both the democratically elected leader and the liberal constitution he has tried to destroy. And if all goes according to plan, Clinton could be remembered for transforming a potentially damaging crisis in Honduras into a historic turning point in U.S.-Latin American relations.