Socialism wears poncho this time

Carlos Alberto Montaner

It is reasonable for the countries in the Americas to have a diplomatic venue where they can meet to examine their common affairs. That, apparently, is the Organization of American States, which was born in 1948 as a Cold War defense mechanism.

In 1947, the Cold War exploded noisily. To Harry Truman (and to Stalin, from the opposite perspective), the danger was obvious. After the Soviet Union's imperial spasm in Europe and the advance of the communists in China, it was inevitable that a confrontation for world hegemony would ensue between the capitalist democracies and the collectivist dictatorships. According to Kremlin theoreticians, ''the final struggle'' foretold by the tacky tune of The Internationale was close at hand.

Washington and Moscow began to sharpen their sabers and dig trenches. The Soviets had a well-oiled strategy for conquest and enjoyed the valuable collaboration of local communists. The United States swiftly began to organize the defense of the Americas to safeguard its own territory.

In 1947, U.S. officials brought Latin American countries together in Rio de Janeiro to sign the Inter-American Treaty for Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), a modest version of what soon would be NATO's key philosophy: All nations would respond jointly if any one of them were attacked. One year later, in April 1948, the OAS was forged in Bogotá.

Without openly proclaiming its real mission, the OAS would be the political and diplomatic forum intended to coordinate U.S. defense against the Soviet jostlings. Naturally, the grand fields of battle were Europe and Asia, but President Truman did not want to leave the American fields unguarded.

Finally, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall was toppled, and a couple of years later, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the European communist bloc, the Cold War came to an end. The United States and its allies had won and had to adapt to the comfortable hospitality of a new and different world where American society, for the first time in its history, did not seem to confront any external enemy that might endanger its security or threaten its astounding economic vitality.

As part of that new stage came a redesign of the OAS. The institution no longer had any purpose as an anti-communist trench, and a new role had to be found for it. Now it would serve to consolidate democratic behavior and defend the market economy, more or less as the nations within the European Union did with the Copenhagen Criteria and the Maastricht Accords. It was the end of the story: The only choices were liberal democracy and the market.

A vain illusion. The Democratic Charter that redefined and specified the political profile of the OAS' member countries was signed in Lima on Sept. 11, 2001, precisely the day when al Qaeda terrorists attacked New York and Washington. Suddenly, the brief period of U.S. hegemony, without enemies, ended. Once again, U.S. security was being threatened.

And the OAS? Curiously, it no longer serves the political or strategic interests of the United States. It is influenced by the trend of the so-called ''21st-century socialism,'' led by Hugo Chávez under the direction of the Castro brothers and the control of the Cuban secret services.

What does it consist of? It is a militantly anti-Western political family, allied to all the enemies of the interests and values of U.S. society -- Iran, North Korea, Belarus, the Colombian FARC -- convinced that its sacred historic mission is to reclaim the cause betrayed by the decadent European communists when they dissolved the Soviet Union and abandoned the struggle for a more-just planet dominated by Marxist ideas. It is the same socialism of the 20th century, but this time it wears a poncho and espadrilles.

What will the United States do, faced with this new, ''low-intensity'' challenge? Folding its arms is not the habitual U.S. stance. However, any new strategy must be founded on a melancholy observation: The OAS is no longer, in any way, useful. The enemy is within.

 June 9, 2009

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