It's another disheartening day as it pertains to U.S. foreign policy, I'm afraid.

This morning brought word of a "resolved deadlock" between Honduras' "rivals" Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti, the latter of whom is the Constitutionally confirmed president after Zelaya recklessly abused his presidential powers at summer's outset. Micheletti was finally forced to succumb to inexplicable U.S. pressure last night in allowing the former leftist President Zelaya back into power's reins. The New York Times is heralding the "agreement" as a "breakthrough" in a "crisis that has given U.S. President Barack Obama a foreign policy headache." A headache? Oh, and Zelaya, a friend of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, is declaring it a "triumph for Honduran democracy," while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is praising the deal as a "big step forward for the Inter-American system and its commitment to democracy."

Hmm...let me point you to another perspective, one that's not being heard on our airwaves. A couple weeks back my friend and U.S. Senator Jim Demint (R - NC) traveled down to Tegucigalpa and met with a cross section of leaders from Honduras' government, business community, and civil society. And what he found confirms my long-held suspicion about the utter confusion polluting the Obama administration's policy toward our loyal allies in Honduras. Says Demint:

While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidences of Mr. Zelaya's abuses of presidential power - and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez - is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted...

 

In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens. When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a "coup," he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh.

Does that name sound familiar? Check out this column I wrote on Koh's antics back in early April. This is hardly someone we should trust on questions of constitutionality.

In another part of the world, as our administration continues to waver on how to treat an Iran bent on achieving nuclear power, a U.S. House committee approved a bill on Wednesday that would cut off Tehran's access to gasoline and other refined petroleum products. The measure would give President Obama the power to take action against foreign companies that sell refined petroleum to Iran, although Administration officials worry that that the legislation could undermine its efforts to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear development program in a "multilateral fashion."

Robert Kagan puts this concern in its proper place in Thursday's Washington Post, in which he evaluates the low likelihood that any delay on such legislation will yield a conciliatory response from Iran's leadership:

Many of us worry that, for Obama, engagement is an end in itself, not a means to an end. We worry that every time Iran rejects one proposal, the president will simply resume negotiations on another proposal and that this will continue right up until the day Iran finally tests its first nuclear weapon, at which point the president will simply begin negotiations again to try to persuade Iran to put its nuclear genie back in the bottle.

 

Russia, meanwhile, will continue to be accommodated as a partner in this effort, on the perpetually untested theory that if Obama ever did decide to get tough with Iran, Moscow would join in. Russia thus reaps all the rewards of engagement without ever having to make a difficult decision.

It seems that we are allowing fundamentally anti-democratic forces to buy time in the name of "engagement" in order toexcuse our own inability to be decisive. How many times have I asked Obama tolead? Time is running out.