If Lopez Obrador prevails in Mexico's presidential election, it would herald the most important victory for the Left in Latin America since the election of Hugo Chavez.

It is perhaps the most significant potential threat to US national security with regards to our southern neighbor since Poncho Villa raided a US border town in 1916. Mexico will be holding its presidential election on July 2nd, which will determine whether Mexico, with its nearly 2,000 mile border with the U.S., joins an emerging anti-American Marxist alliance in Latin America. It will decide whether Mexico follows Venezuela’s example in becoming a state sponsor of terrorism with a potential pool of 12-20 million illegal immigrant recruits already inside our borders, a couple of million of whom recently conducted mass demonstrations against our country, or continues to be ruled by the much more mainstream PAN party.

Ultra-left, Marxist candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, continues to outpoll his more mainstream socialist PRI and center right PAN party opponents in the final run-up to the Mexican presidential election scheduled for July 2nd. Obrador is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is himself a close ally of Communist Cuban President Fidel Castro. Together, Chavez and Castro have been the two principal supporters of Communist and Marxist revolution throughout Latin America.

The PRI’s presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, has warned that “there are clear similarities between (Venezuelan President Hugo) Chavez and Lopez Obrador . . . They have very similar attitudes. I see authoritarianism in them both.” Madrazo further said that Obrador, like Chavez, does not respect the rule of law and that foreign investors would shun Mexico if Obrador were to come to power. Madrazo also accused Obrador of being in close contact with Chavez aides and suggested that Chavez was trying to sway the Mexican elections toward Obrador, accusations that Obrador did not deny. Obrador’s populist leftist appeal and his socialist-style handout programs as mayor of Mexico City have fueled the comparison with Chavez. These allegations were strengthened when Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) told several Mexican legislators that he had intelligence reports revealing major financial support from Chavez to Obrador and his political party. These attacks against Obrador by his presidential rivals have succeeded in reducing his lead in the polls to just a few points.

Madrazo’s comparison of Obrador to Venezuelan President Chavez is chilling given the fact that Chavez is a self-proclaimed Communist who has declared Communist Cuba as his primary model for Venezuela. The People’s Weekly World, the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA, has staunchly supported Obrador and has noted that his party, “the PRD was formed in 1989 by left-wing elements of the PRI, the Communist Party of Mexico, and other left and progressive groups.” Having a Hugo Chavez-clone elected as President of Mexico — a country with a nearly 2,000 mile long border with the United States – at a time when President Bush has been trying to open the borders with Mexico and grant amnesty to 12-15 million illegal immigrants and allow tens of millions more to enter the country at will, would presumably change the administration’s preoccupation with the war in Iraq and focus its attention on America’s “backyard” where it belongs.

Dick Morris recently reported that,

Chavez is a firm ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro. Lopez Obrador could be the final piece in their grand plan to bring the United States to its knees before the newly resurgent Latin left. Between them, Venezuela and Mexico export about 4 million barrels of oil each day to the United States, more than one-third of our oil imports. With both countries in the hands of leftist leaders, the opportunity to hold the U.S. hostage will be extraordinary. Think we have security problems now, with Vicente Fox leading Mexico? Just wait until we have a 2,000-mile border with a chum of Chavez and Castro . . . Lopez Obrador would be part of Latin America's new, anti-U.S. left . . . Mexico, with its vast oil resources and its long border and free-trade agreement with the United States, would be the crown jewel for America's enemies.

A recently published article entitled, “Who's Losing Latin America,” similarly noted that,

. . . Washington confronts the distinct possibility of having an explicitly hostile government in Mexico.

The implications of such an outcome could be far-reaching for the integrity of our southern frontier, illegal immigration, drug-trafficking, terrorism, trade and the radical "reconquista" movement (which is intent on "taking back" at least parts of the United States for Mexico). Even under the relatively friendly government of Vincente Fox, as Heather Mac Donald pointed out last November, "Mexican officials here and abroad are involved in a massive and almost daily interference in American sovereignty." Imagine what representatives of an unfriendly Mexican apparat might do

. . . 

The consequence of all these elections may well be the complete undoing of Ronald Reagan's legacy of successfully countering and, with the notable exception of Castro's Cuba, defeating totalitarianism in our hemisphere. At some point in the not-too-distant future, the question will be asked, probably with political repercussions: "Who lost Latin America?"

If the radical Marxist candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Lopez Obrador, wins this presidential election, it would herald, along with the election of Communist front leader Lula da Silva in Brazil in 2002, the most important victory for Marxist revolutionaries and the biggest defeat for the cause of freedom worldwide since the fall of China to Communism in 1949. The Bush administration should pursue all peaceful avenues available, including covert means, to ensure that Lopez Obrador does not succeed in his bid to become the next President of Mexico, or the national security woes of this administration and this country may increase substantially. If Obrador wins, President Bush’s already badly-damaged presidential legacy will likely end up being a much greater terrorist threat to this country than before he became President. 

The Emerging Marxist Latin American Axis of Evil

The United States may have won the Cold War against the Soviet Union, but Fidel Castro and his Marxist allies seem poised to win their Cold War against the United States in terms of both revolutionary and electoral Marxist takeovers of many of the nations of Latin America. The Bush administration has been asleep at the helm of state and has done little or nothing to stop this dangerous trend to US national security right in its own “backyard,” abandoning Ronald Reagan’s successful policy of confronting, containing and even rolling back Communism in the Western Hemisphere during the 1980’s.

This disturbing trend began when Marxists seized power in Brazil in October 2002. Their leader, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, ran for President four times at the head of a Communist coalition before finally getting elected President in 2002. Curiously, President Bush has taken a special interest in befriending Brazil's Marxist president since his election, meeting with him on several occasions. Bush’s decision to court Lula is questionable given the fact that Brazil has refused the International Atomic Agency’s request for inspections of its nuclear sites, in addition to the fact that Lula is the founder of the Forum de Sao Paulo, which is an organization where terrorists and Communist revolutionaries across the world have met annually since 1990 to coordinate anti-American policies. Brazil is believed by scientists to have nearly finished building a couple of atomic bombs in 1990 before dismantling them in 1994. Lula was elected in 2002 after making comments indicating his commitment to developing nuclear weapons. Since being elected, Lula has formed a strategic partnership with Communist China, which has been making substantial inroads of late in increasing its global influence across Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Over the past four years, Marxists have succeeded in taking power in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile in addition to Venezuela, where self-described Communist dictator, Hugo Chavez, wields power. Bolivia, where Marxist former coca-farmer Evo Morales has taken control, has also fallen into Castro’s orbit and aligned itself with its leftist neighbors. The members of this new Marxist alliance in Latin America have in turn allied with the Sino-Russian axis of nations, an unsavory alliance which includes such notorious rogue states and state sponsors of terror as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran. This stunning triumph of socialists and Marxists in taking power through democratic means and in many cases with Cuban and Venezuelan assistance has set the stage for a new Latin America trade bloc and potential economic union to counter U.S. regional power. Fidel Castro’s revolutionary agents have finally succeeded in taking over Latin America right under the noses of the Bush administration.

Since taking office, the Bush administration has done almost nothing to counter this unprecedented Marxist takeover of Latin America and has exhibited no resolve in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. Even Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas are once again poised for a potential return to power in the Nicaraguan presidential election set for November. These Marxist victories were only made possible because the Bush administration made the strategic error of ceasing to view Communism as a threat, inexplicably focusing instead on wasting America’s precious blood and treasure to prop up the newly elected, hard-line Iranian-proxy Shiite Islamist government in Iraq.

Interestingly, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jose Castaneda, a former member of the Communist Party of Mexico himself, urged Mexican President Fox to “completely break” relations with Venezuela. He stated that Chavez is orchestrating a campaign throughout Latin America to interfere in the elections in Bolivia, Columbia, Mexico and Nicaragua.  On November 14th, Fox decided to follow Castaneda’s advice and broke diplomatic relations with Chavez in the wake of Chavez’s attacks on Fox as a “puppy dog of the American empire” for supporting Bush’s plans to economically integrate the nations of North and South America beginning with his Free Trade Area of the Americans (FTAA) agreement.

The election of ultra-left Marxist presidential candidate Lopez Obrador as President of Mexico in this weekend’s presidential election would mark a profound shift resulting in Mexico joining this newly developing Marxist alliance. The only benefit would be that it would likely throw a monkey-wrench into President Bush’s Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, which if fully implemented, would effectively abolish our national borders and economically and ultimately politically integrate the three nations of North America, giving up US sovereignty and independence in the process.

Former U.S. Marine H. Thomas Hayden has said that he believes conditions are ripe for collaborative efforts between this new Marxist alliance and other U.S. enemies, such as al-Queda – which is already suspected of receiving some assistance from the leftist, Marxist guerilla groups in Colombia.  It has been previously reported by WorldNetDaily.com and other news outlets that Al Queda has infiltrated dozens if not hundreds of terrorists across the porous US border with Mexico, yet President Bush has done as little as politically possible to enhance US border security over four years.  Chavez’s support for anti-American terrorists in the Middle East and throughout Latin America is well known. Were Obrador elected President and were he to prove similarly supportive of terror, the United States could be presented with a state sponsor of terrorism on our own borders, bringing the war on terror home in a way which has not been felt since September 11, 2001.

A victory by Obrador might even force President Bush to accelerate a US withdrawal from Iraq even further to provide more troops to secure our borders against terrorist infiltration at a time when we are fighting a long-war against terror. His administration’s failure to do so nearly five years after September 11, 2001 is inexcusable.