Analyzes the civil war in "one of the sickest societies in Latin America", and urges a review of US aid policy objectives.
James LeMoyne has reported on El Salvador since 1982 and was The New York Times correspondent there from 1984 to 1988. He is writing a book on Central America.
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The two key issues are development aid levels and Pakistan's nuclear policy. On the first, argues that the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus US budget constraints, indicate that "extraordinarily high levels of aid cannot and should not be maintained". On the second, asserts that the USA should, if it proves unable to persuade Pakistan to renounce its nuclear programme, lower its sights and settle for Pakistani agreement not to test nuclear weapons.
The manner in which President Bush terminated US military action against Iraq, and the unsatisfactoriness of the residual situation in the Gulf region with Saddam Hussein still in place, served to erode that sense of purpose and self-confidence with which Americans were persuaded to embark on that action. "He left them in confusion over exactly what they had been fighting for in the Persian Gulf, hence over what America's role should be in the post-Cold War world".
Now that the 'obsessions' of the Reagan era can be laid to rest, it is time for the USA to reformulate the premisses and goals of its Latin American policy, and to develop a 'positive agenda' which moves beyond the calculations of US domestic political interests.
