petroleumworld

Scott Sullivan : Senator Brown
must defy Bush, endorse Perry

Senator-elect Scott Brown will continue to be the most important leader in Washington. By winning last week’s election for a seat in the US Senate, Brown has already made history by weakening Obama’s presidency. Brown has done so by denying Obama the vote he needs to pass his controversial health care plan in the Senate. As a result, Obama’s entire domestic agenda is Kaput, along with Obama’s presidency as a whole, given Obama’s inability to construct an activist foreign policy that boosts confidence in his administration.

What miracle should Senator-elect Brown perform next?

Senator-elect Brown can again make history, this time by joining Sarah Palin to endorse Governor Perry's re-election in the March 2 Republican gubernatorial primary in Texas. Gov. Perry is a hard line conservative who opposes the political and economic concessions to Hugo Chavez, Iran, and Bolivia made by Bush 43 during his presidency, and continued under President Obama.

Gov. Perry is opposed for re-election by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a political moderate who is backed by Bush 41, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Jim Baker and – very quietly, from the sidelines -- Bush 43. Bush supports Hutchison as Texas governor because she will maintain Bush's soft-line policy of concessions to Chavez, Iran and Bolivia.

In contrast, if re-elected, Gov, Perry would doom the Bush-Obama plans for even more US concessions to Hugo Chavez, For example, Chavez is now pressuring the US to accept Jean Bertrand Aristide as Haiti’s new president, a step that Bush refused to take, to his credit, in the 1990’s.

However, Bush's record as president has a history of concessions to Aristide's allies such as Hugo Chavez Iran, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba. In particular, Bush treated Hugo Chavez as a special partner who received more favorable treatment under US policy than all other Latin American presidents. Bush refused to press Chavez on human rights issues, ever. Bush encouraged increased investment by US oil companies in Venezuela, without protecting the US oil companies from heavy-handed coercion by Hugo Chavez during negotiations on oil contracts Moreover Bush refused to object as Chavez and Iran financed, trained, and armed powerful terrorist groups in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

Finally, in a setback to the US military position in Central America, Bush supported President Obama's shameful efforts to bring a Chavez-supported government back to power in Honduras last year after it was overthrown by the Honduran military. Obama failed. but If a pro- Chavez regime had regained power in Honduras he would have insisted that Honduras expel US forces. Chavez also would have used Honduran territory to promote subversion in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador,

The good news is that Governor Perry will not follow President Bush down this path of appeasement of Hugo Chavez. Instead, upon re-election, Governor Perry align his Latin American policies with those of the new right wing, anti Chavez government in Chile under Sebastian Pinera, elected last week. Perry should seek Chile's agreement to co-sponsor a conference on Latin American security that would develop a plan for stability in the Andes.

Scott Sullivan is a former Washington government employee and was the Senior Advisor for International Economics at the Crisis Management Center of the National Security Council, 1984 -1986. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld News 01/25/2010

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