Left-leaning Argentine challenges U.S. role

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BUENOS AIRES -- A growing group of left-leaning Latin American leaders is challenging U.S. dominance in the region, none more virulently than Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, who has boasted that he will "win by knockout" in a meeting scheduled with President Bush today.

Leaders from the 34 member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) are meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, for the Special Summit of the Americas, in which they will discuss issues ranging from terrorism to debt relief.

Once a tractable region for the United States, Latin America increasingly is adopting a bold new hostility to U.S. policy, embodied in the confrontational style of Mr. Kirchner.

A gangly populist from the southern reaches of Patagonia who was a virtual cipher less than a year ago, Mr. Kirchner is emerging as the brash new leader of what U.S. Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican, once dubbed an emerging Latin American "axis of evil."

Another presumptive member of that axis, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose inauguration a year ago sent tremors through Washington and Wall Street, unexpectedly has favored cautious diplomacy and conservative economic policies.

But his Argentine counterpart has combined an assault on entrenched domestic interests with an aggressive foreign policy that has rankled top officials in the Bush administration.

Last week, Roger Noriega, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, criticized the "leftward drift" of Argentina's foreign policy and said the Kirchner administration's relationship with Cuba was "disappointing" -- a position affirmed by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa visited Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana in October while neglecting to meet with Cuban dissidents, and a Kirchner Cabinet member has said that the administration will not vote against Cuba in the annual meeting of the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights despite U.S. pressure.

Mr. Kirchner responded to Mr. Noriega's critique with the combativeness that has become his trademark.

"Let's stop being a carpet," he declared to a crowd of cheering supporters in a Buenos Aires slum. "Nobody summons us, and much less to scold us, because we are an independent country with dignity."

Cuba is not an active member of the OAS and as such is not present at the meetings in Monterrey.

Besides establishing warm relations with Cuba, Mr. Kirchner has reached out to other adversaries of the United States in the region, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fiery leftist and a close ally to Mr. Castro, and Bolivian presidential hopeful Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer who is a leading opponent of the U.S.-led war on drugs in Latin America.

Mr. Kirchner also has scuttled legislation that would have paved the way for U.S. troops to participate in training exercises with their Argentine counterparts.

And with Mr. Lula da Silva, he has helped stall a hemispheric free-trade agreement championed by the United States, while pushing for the formation of an independent South American trade bloc.

Meanwhile, he has faced down the International Monetary Fund, refusing to raise utility prices and to compensate multinational banks, while demanding a 75 percent reduction in the nation's debt. Slated to deliver the closing speech in Monterrey today, Mr. Kirchner is expected to argue in favor of debt relief to developing nations.

Since assuming office less than eight months ago with 22 percent of the vote, Mr. Kirchner has soared in popularity in Argentina, garnering one of the highest approval ratings of any president in South America.

In the process, the Peronist Party president has evoked comparisons with his party's founder, Juan Domingo Peron, a populist who nationalized foreign-controlled industries while railing against U.S. imperialism as Argentina's president 50 years ago.