BrianGarst.com

The Wall Street Journal offers a different view than my initial, pessimistic take:

The big news in Honduras is that the good guys seem to have won a four-month political standoff over the exile of former President Manuel Zelaya. Current President Roberto Micheletti agreed yesterday to submit Mr. Zelaya’s request for reinstatement as president to the Supreme Court and Congress, and in return the U.S. will withdraw its sanctions and recognize next month’s presidential elections.

Mr. Zelaya, whose term would have expired in January, isn’t likely to be reinstated, given that the court has twice ruled against his right to remain in office. The Honduran Congress, which voted in June to remove Mr. Zelaya, will then use that high court’s opinion to decide if he should be restored to power.There is a risk that Venezeula’s Hugo Chávez and other Zelaya allies will try to buy support for their man and stir other trouble. But Hondurans who have rightly stood up to enormous U.S. pressure to reinstate Mr. Zelaya aren’t likely to be intimidated now.

I certainly hope this is true, but I can’t help but wonder whether the U.S. is also using some of its backroom bully tactics on the other branches of the Honduran government.  Might they believe that the U.S. will renege on its end if they don’t go along and restore him to power?  Given the deplorable behavior of the Obama administration up till now, it’s entirely possible.

Honduras