Opinion: Dust-Up: Who lost Central (and South) America?

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Is the left surging? Is the right wrong? Dig this week’s Latin America Dust-Up.

In today’s exchange, Angelo Rivero Santos, deputy chief of mission at the Venezuelan embassy, say at least three Bush Administration misdeeds are to blame for poor U.S.-Venezuelan relations. New America Foundation senior fellow Andrés Martinez agrees on one of those points but calls the others respectively absurd and hollow.

Yesterday, Martinez said the folkloric leftist authoritarianism of Hugo Chavez is already in eclipse, while Santos said self-regulating markets and economic liberalization have failed in Latin America.

Note on the title: We had initially conceived this exchange as focusing on Colombia-Venezuela-y-norte for a restaging of the great Reagan-era battles over the Caribbean and the northern parts of South America. As the debate seems to be moving toward a broader Latin America discussion, we will correct, and we appreciate commenters for pointing out our imperialistic geography.