David Scott Palmer's U.S. Relations with Latin America during the Clinton Years

I read David Scott Palmer’s U.S. Relations with Latin America during the Clinton Years: Opportunities Lost or Opportunities Squandered? for a review in The Americas and put in on the side bar. I found it to be a good overview, clearly written and aimed at classroom use (and perhaps policy makers as well). It includes many interviews with key players. I won’t copy my book review for the journal (which I just recently submitted so it won’t appear for a while) but rather will note the issue of historical legacy.

It’s a generally even handed account, but Palmer is mostly critical of the Clinton Administration, leaning more toward the “opportunities squandered” side. Nonetheless, I wonder whether over the long term Clinton’s legacy will be viewed in more positive terms simply because of his successor.

We can rightly criticize him for failing to put together a coherent policy, for bungling the crisis in Haiti, for veering around with Cuba policy, failing to follow up on the Summit of the Americas, and supporting military-led drug policies more than democracy. As Palmer points out, with the end of the Cold War there was an window of opportunity but the administration didn’t take advantage of it.

On the other hand, compared to George W. Bush these deficiencies seem more mild. Clinton’s “haphazard and ad hoc” (p. 63) manner of making decisions is at least preferable to deliberate intimidation and condescension. Even compared to Bush I, who was much more pragmatic than Reagan yet still invaded a Latin American country, the Clinton years can be viewed in a more positive light.

To be sure, this is damning with faint praise but I think is still worth noting. Palmer also discusses the strong U.S. role in negotiating the Ecuador-Peru conflict, working with Mexican officials toward resolution of the peso crisis and also political liberalization, contributing to the Guatemalan peace agreement (and opposition to Jorge Serrano’s attempted autogolpe), and a variety of other issues. Nothing earthshattering, but they should be part of a holistic view of his legacy.

This comes down to judging the administration on its own goals (which Palmer does systematically) and comparatively. Clinton fails more on the former than the latter, and over time I think he will come out looking fairly positive. This is not to excuse his failures—the push for militarization in Colombia is certainly a terrible one—but to put him in some sort of comparative context.

The book is a first step toward defining a legacy of Latin America policy for the Clinton Administration, and certainly more will be forthcoming. This also makes me think of the next U.S. president, who will have a tremendous opportunity to restore badly damaged relations. Will it be squandered?