Today the AP reports that the Organization of American States (OAS) will send a delegation to Honduras in a new effort to pressure Interim President Micheletti to restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Micheletti, however, is standing strong–stating hours before the announced dispatch of the OAS delegation that “the former president of Honduras can never return to the presidency because he has declared mediated talks a failure.” 

Perhaps Micheletti is drawing strength from the Honduran people who seem to care less about Zelaya.  The AP story reports:


Although his supporters have staged daily demonstrations to demand his return, Zelaya has struggled to muster strong popular resistance among Hondurans to the coup-installed government.  Ahead of a visit to Mexico, Zelaya left the Nicaraguan town of Ocotal where he had settled his government-in-exile and summoned hundreds of supporters to form “peaceful militias” to flank him during a possible return to Honduras. But many of those supporters started heading back to Honduras on Monday when they found him gone.

Given the indifference to Zelaya’s return on the part of most Hondurans…one might wonder, why does Obama care so much?

Jay Ambrose examines this issue in a must-read oped in today’s Washington Times. 

Ambrose writes: 



One proffered explanation is that the administration is reflexively compensating for America’s strategic backing of coups against any Latin American governments that might align themselves with the Soviets during the Cold War, but what hope is there for our officials if they cannot distinguish between now and then? It has been suggested, too, that there was an initial misreading of what had happened — that this was like all those Latin American overthrows in the bad old days. But has the administration really been that thoughtless about something that matters so much? 


Here’s a fear – that this administration has deep, abiding sympathy for socialist solutions both in the United States and elsewhere and thinks Mr. Zelaya could be just what Honduras needs. Maybe that is a nutty conclusion and absolutely wrong. I hope so, and I hope the administration proves it wrong by changing its stance.