President Obama is the last hope for Latin America’s lefty thugs

President Obama is the last hope for Latin America's lefty thugs
By Benny Avni December 9, 2015 | 8:26pm
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Will the current collapse of Latin American hard-left governments next
reach their patron saints, the Castro brothers?

The recent trifecta of leftist losses in Argentina, Brazil and most
spectacularly Venezuela — where the opposition party this week won a
large majority — points to a new trend in a region that has for so long
embraced revolution.

And, surprise, the only hope left for these regimes may be a lifeline
from a perennial butt of their ire: us.

Mauricio Macri will assume Argentina's presidency today. On Oct. 25, he
defeated Daniel Scioli, the leftist successor to Cristina Kirchner, who
succeeded her husband, Nestor, in 2007. The couple ran the country's
economy into the ground for 12 years, cozying up to bad actors from
Caracas to Tehran. Macri won because he promised to turn away from
government controls to a market-oriented economy, and to bring back
press and other freedoms that the Kirchners took away.

In Brazil, legislators started impeachment procedures last week against
lefty President Dilma Rousseff, accusing her of cooking the books to
make the economy look good. The procedure was briefly halted Monday, but
it's widely supported.

Rousseff's mentor and predecessor, Lula da Silva, may have talked a
strong leftist game, but he ruled from the center.

Rousseff didn't, and she'll soon be tossed out of office one way or another.

Leftist ideologues elsewhere in the hemisphere are in various degrees of
trouble, but the most stinging loss happened Sunday, when the Venezuelan
regime soundly lost a parliamentary election.

Like elsewhere in the region, where strongmen relied far too much on
commodities to finance patronage, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is
reeling under the collapse of oil prices.

It's easy to buy voters' support when your vast oil reserves sell for
$90 a barrel. Much harder to afford it at the current rate, under $40 a
barrel.

That price collapse — complete with 200 percent inflation (and growing),
lack of basic food items and anarchy in the streets — was swift, turning
off even the most ardent Chavista.

And this is where the Castros come in.

Maduro became Havana's man in Venezuela, where his predecessor, Hugo
Chavez — who since 1999 used Venezuela's oil to prop up "Bolivarian
revolutions" across the region — died in 2013. Maduro reliably
maintained the Havana-Caracas co-dependency, based on a simple tradeoff:
Venezuela averts the collapse of Cuba's economy by subsidizing its
energy needs; Cuba sends physicians and security personnel to Venezuela.

But on Sunday regime opponents won more than two-thirds of the seats in
the National Assembly — enough to begin the process of unseating Maduro.
The new powers oppose the Cuba arrangement: Why give away a natural
resource? More importantly, where's the promised security? Crime rates
in Venezuela are at an all-time high.

In reality, Cuban security personnel suppress any form of criticism,
jailing top political challengers (like Leopoldo Lopez) and keeping all
would-be "trouble makers" in line.

That arrangement is good for Latin America's worst leftist caudillos,
but bad for everyone else.
Unless President Obama throws them a lifeline.

Cuba's unsustainable Communist system recently got a shot in the arm
when Obama renewed relations with Havana. But the promised trade between
Cuba and the United States has yet to materialize.

So for now, the Castros' prestige may have been boosted by Obama. But
"you can't eat that stuff," says Jorge Castaneda, a longtime region
watcher and former Mexican foreign minister, whose political
autobiography, "Amarres Perros," is making waves across the region
(except in Cuba).

As the economy tanks further, Cubans look to escape the island. And
unless Donald Trump erects a sea wall, tens of thousands will soon wash
ashore in Miami. To prevent such a spectacle, Castaneda says, Obama may
soon start leaning on Venezuela's victorious opposition to continue the
oil subsidies to Cuba.

Yes, that same sinister arrangement that Venezuela's anti-Chavistas are
so eager to end.
So there you have it: Over the weekend, Venezuela's Maduro typically
blamed America and other foreign powers for his loss. But his hold on
power (and Castro's, and the remaining hard-leftists) can be aided, at
least in the short run, by an American president who fears a wave of
refugees in an election year.

And that's how Obama may end up prolonging the hemisphere's worst, dying
regimes.

Source: President Obama is the last hope for Latin America's lefty thugs
| New York Post -
http://nypost.com/2015/12/09/president-obama-is-the-last-hope-for-latin-americas-lefty-thugs/