The Foreign Service Journal, June 2011

J U N E 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21 ternative energy sources. Latin American countries are rightly proud of their own innovation and progress, so our inability at times to practice what we preach undermines our credibility. The growing polarization of our own domestic politics is an added impediment to productive engagement with the hemisphere. There are sharp divisions in the policy com- munity, for example, over how to characterize the nature of Iran’s relationship with such countries as Venezuela, Bo- livia and Ecuador, and the degree of threat that relation- ship represents. Similarly, there is no consensus on the proper way to respond to sharp reversals of the democratic process in such countries as Venezuela and Nicaragua, let alone how to engage with the process of change taking place in Cuba. It is also worth noting that, according to the U.S. De- partment of Energy, more than 60 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports are destined for the United States. That amounts to about 12 percent of U.S. oil imports, creating a bizarre form of economic interdependence at odds with the chill in political relations. The temptation to use such hot-button issues for partisan advantage is enormous, al- though such debates rarely produce better policy. It is time for us to rethink what we want from hemi- spheric relations, avoiding historic impulses to paternal- ism, on the one hand, and the tendency to pay attention only in the face of security threats, real or imagined, on the other. The U.S. economy is in deep crisis, and will remain so for the foreseeable future; our country is still in the midst of two major wars. We should not pretend that Latin America will be a foreign policy priority, and claims to the contrary will only ring hollow. That said, we should see the political and economic ad- vances in the region over the last decade as a strategic asset for the United States. Forging partnerships among equals by definition means that we cannot get our own way all, or even most, of the time. There is enough com- mon ground, however, for the United States and the rest of the Americas to see each other as paths to the realiza- tion of their own interests and goals. F O C U S