But not Iran.
Hmmm. And even saying anything about Iran could be considered “meddling” in the internal affairs of another country, per the Obama administration, but apparently working actively within Honduras to stop what it characterizes as a “military coup” isn’t meddling.
Confusing foreign policy.
An interesting aspect of the Honduran “coup”, per Fausta is:
-Tuesday last week the Honduran Congress, led by members of his own party, passed a law preventing the holding of referendums or plebiscites 180 days before or after general elections.
– The Honduran Congress, led by members of his own party, named a commission to investigate Zelaya. The Commission found (my translation: If you quote it, please credit me and link to this post)
Zelaya acted against the mandates of legal and electoral laws, the Public Ministry, the National Congress, the Attorney General, and other institutions of the State, which had declared the poll illegal.
Additionally, the court weighed in:
Indeed, Honduras’ La Prensa states that (My translation: If you use this, please credit me and link to this post)
An official statement of the Supreme Court of Justice explained that the Armed Forces acted under lawful grounds when detaining the President of the Republic, and by decommissioning the materials to be used on the illegal poll which aimed to bring forth Executive Power against a judicial order.
Other sources verified that the president of the Congress, Roberto Micheletti, will assume the presidency of the republic in a few hours.
…
Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was detained this morning by the military in compliance with an order of the courts of law.
I’ve also seen a report that the new president, Roberto Micheletti, is of the same party as Zelaya.
As I said this morning I’m not a Honduran Constitutional expert – but our Constitutional expert-in-chief seems to have it all figured out. I think the “why” should be obvious:
Analysts said quick criticism of the coup by Obama and Clinton on Sunday pleased Latin American countries bitter about the long history of U.S. intervention in the region.
Despite Obama’s claim that this would set a “terrible precedent”, the State Department still hasn’t yet made a determination that an actual “military coup” has actually taken place:
Despite Obama’s comments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration was not formally designating the ouster as a military coup for now.
Such a designation could force the U.S. leader to cut off most aid to Honduras. Under U.S. legislation, no aid — other than for the promotion of democracy — may be provided to a country whose elected head of government has been toppled in a military coup.
“We do think that this has evolved into a coup,” Clinton told reporters, adding the administration was “withholding” that determination for now.
The stated reason is they want to leave room for negotiations with “the goal of restoring democratic order in Honduras”.
What isn’t clear, however, is whether or not what happened wasn’t a result of “democratic order” and legal. For instance:
Jason Steck, writing at Real Clear World Blog, explains
what is happening in Honduras may be an example of a coup that is not only legal, but mandatory
because, in Honduras’s case, the military has been endowed with a role in maintaining democratic governance; this time their task was to delivery Zelaya safely out of office and into the airplane to Costa Rica.
If this all ends up being constituitonally legal, it will be interesting to see how Obama backs off his previous statements or whether, instead, he continues to characterize the arrest of Zelaya as a “coup” to play to the leftist crowd now “pleased” with his initial reaction.
Regardless, I’m less than impressed with Obama’s reaction to world events in Iran, North Korea and now Honduras.
~McQ