A few words on the crisis in Honduras

It may be tiring to hear of the constant critiques of democracy promotion and the "Obama effect," but a spate of recent events (some more recent than others - yes, this blog has been dormant for quite some time) helps put this misguided campaign into perspective. Criticism of democracy promotion has waned since its heyday in the Bush administration. The immediacy and scale of democracy promotion's flawed logic and human cost was much greater in 2003 than it is in 2009. That said, moving from a disastrous flawed policy to one that is merely weak and incoherent is not a substitute for policy change. Turning the volume down from 11 isn't enough.

Six months into the Obama presidency, it's time to remove the blinders of self-congratulation and take a frank look at the ideas and actions with which we wish to shape today's world. Teguicgalpa is one example. My aim here is not to side with those who claim Obama is in fact destroying democracy by promoting Chavismo. Instead, let's acknowledge a simple truth - we do not know what we are doing, and we are not fit to be picking sides nearly as often as what we do. For example, Zelaya violated the Constitution and ignored the Supreme Court and Congress of his country. The checks and balances in the Honduras, which allow democratic republics to function effectively, were undermined. Despite the provision of the Honduran constitution that Zelaya "immediately" (de inmediato) cease to function in his duties, the idea that a military intervention in civilian government might be constitutional unsettles us, and rightly so.

The reasons for the coup rest on two main lines of argument - firstly, the military must uphold the constitution of the Honduras and Zelaya would not have submitted to a civilian impeachment. This argument carries enough weight that it should make Obama and the OAS uncomfortable with their condemnation of the coup. For example, Article 272 of the Honduran constitution not only tasks the military with the protection of the constitution, but explicitly states that the military is responsible for ensuring the alternation of the Presidency. In fact, there is no clear legal process for impeachment. The Supreme Court thus resorted to the military's explict role in enforcing the constitution and in particular preventing continuismo, and in thus the coup is constitutional, if not "democratic."

The second argument for the use of the military is Zelaya's relations with ALBA, the Venezuelan-lead bloc of leftist countries. Many Hondurans believe that Nicaraguan and Venezuelan troops are either present in Honduras or mobilizing on the border with Nicaragua. This smacks of conspiracy, but Chavez isn't beyond mobilizing troops to coerce or intimidate his neighbors (on a side note, it is darkly amusing to find Chavez, who tried to seize power in 1992, denouncing a military coup). When Colombia launched a cross-border raid into Ecuador to kill FARC leaders, Chavez mobilized the army to the Colombian border. This, combined with Honduran entry into ALBA under Zelaya, gave many Hondurans the sense that their sovereignty was compromised and that Zelaya might call upon foreign allies to suppress internal dissent. Under these circumstances, it is understandable, if not necessarily right, that the military wished to get involved - they believed they were defending the sovereignty of Honduras, rightly or wrongly. Perhaps this prophecy was somewhat self-fulfilling, though - the coup lead Chavez to threaten a state of war with Honduras.

All this said, the new Honduran government, while constitutional, is less than admirable. While the new President is a member of Zelaya's party, the military has nevertheless cracked down on dissenting media outlets and used force against protesters, in contravention to the Constitution, which Congress has gotten around by declaring a state of emergency. They expatriated Zelaya to Costa Rica in a naked violation of Honduran law and may have denied him due process for arrest. The question is not whether the new government has done anything wrong, though; obviously it has violated Honduran law in the course of the coup, even if the coup itself is constitutional. The question is whether our proposed solution and demands on the Honduran government are all reasonable. I would say they are not.

Zelaya is not the legal President of Honduras. He cannot hold public office for 10 years. Insisting that he be the President of the Honduras is imposing a leader on the Honduras against the constitution. Perhaps, though, this is more democratic, since the Honduran constitution is undemocratic. It is certainly undemocratic for the military to arbitrate a political dispute. That said, what is so democratic or liberal about taking sides in a Honduran constitutional dispute? We claim to be doing it in the interest of democracy, not ideology, but at what point does this sort of intervention in the name of democracy become ideological? It is not as if Zelaya is particularly popular. He is, by some surveys, Latin America's least popular leader. He does not have the support of the majority of Hondurans, the Congress. Just because there are demonstrations does not mean he is the legitimate ruler any more than Mousavi is the legitmate President of Iran simply because there are demonstrations there.

However flawed the Honduran constitution might be, Zelaya cannot be President without violating the constitution and I hardly imagine restoring him to the Presidency will be productive in the least. If we want to support political resolutions to political dispute, Zelaya does not belong in executive office but in court upon his return. So too do the military officers who violated Honduran law in extraditing him. Identifying support of democracy or democratic institutions, though, with undermining the constitution of Honduras further will only further polarize Honduran society and cast more doubt on the legitimacy of the government.

The constitution, with the exception of the seven permanent articles, can be amended. In fact, it is amended quite frequently. Obviously it would be more democratic for the Honduras to provide some sort of civilian process for impeachment rather than directly delegating this power to the military. However, this is something for Hondurans to decide and the rest of the world to observe. Clearly, guaranteeing the fairness of this process will be difficult (the same goes the plebiscite Zelaya proposed), but election observers can play this role. Demanding the scrapping or directing the revision of the Honduran constitution, however, is little different than regime change. It is frustrating to acknowledge but there is not an easy way out of this one. As anyone who's read Federalist no. 10 knows, it can be hard to protect small republics from faction. Nor is a constitution imposed by foreign demands likely to solve the underlying problems of polarization in Honduras.

We can afford to screw up on this one because the days when banana republics factored into our national interest have passed. But with Iran and likely more protests of this nature to come, it's time to take a frank look at what we have a right to do as a state among states, and what is actually in our interests. Contra the President, we are not protecting democracy in any way in pursuit of Zelaya's reinstatement. Nor, however, would we be protecting it by simply letting the situation sit. Putting Zelaya back in power won't solve any of the factional problems undermining democracy in the Honduras, and undermining the constitution won't either. Nor does leaving Michletti in power. Democracy in the Honduras may in fact be something that we can't control or bring into being. It is one thing to condemn a coup as an undemocratic intervention in a country's government, it is another to think we have the right to intervene ourselves. For all our talk of empowering the demos, we are likely to hurt them if we continue suspending aid programs. Perhaps ending military aid to the Honduras is a good idea. But it seems silly that while we re-evaluate the efficacy of Cuban sanctions in regime change, we see renewed promise for them in Honduras.

Again, we're lucky this is happening in Honduras and not somewhere where our national interests come into play. Obama took the right stance by demanding a recall in Iran and keeping quiet since then, in recognition that interfering in Iranian domestic affairs (a la Operation Ajax) is counterproductive, and that our national interest in avoiding the success of the Iranian nuclear arms program or Iranian aggression must come first. There is no virtue in sacrificing all this for the sake of putting a somewhat less conservative and less anti-American candidate into a position that, as per the very undermocratic constitution of the Islamic Republic, has little meaningful power over Iran anyway.

Just because we think democracy is on the march does not mean we can command its ranks as an army. Institutions matter, interests matter, the conflicts that undermine democracy matter. We can't control some of these. If there's a force in history, it doesn't tell us that we're on the right side of it - it tells us we can't control it.