BUILD A LEGACY IN AMERICA'S BACKYARD

Of all the regions in a dangerous and intractable world, forgotten
Latin America might paradoxically offer Barack Obama the best
opportunity to influence events so that the "hope for the future"
embodied in his Nobel Peace Prize becomes a reality.

Building on his creative engagement with Latin America after the
George W. Bush years of blindness and neglect, there is much the
president can accomplish immediately. Lifting the senseless blockade
against Cuba, followed by full diplomatic relations, would be a good
beginning. Another sore spot is Honduras, where the United States has
not done enough to isolate and punish the de facto government, which
came to power through a coup against the country's elected president.
And Obama should rethink his approach to hemispheric security
(canceling, for instance, Plan Colombia) as a way of defusing
tensions in a Latin America threatened by a new arms race.

The U.S., one of the largest Spanish-speaking countries in the world,
could also send a signal of friendship to Latin America by legalizing
the situation of millions of undocumented Latino workers.

On another front, presidents Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and Felipe
Calderon of Mexico, seconded by Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva,
have valiantly opened up a tentative conversation about the failed
"war on drugs." If Obama were to encourage, and perhaps imitate,
their efforts to decriminalize the use of marijuana, it would help
alter an irrational policy that has generated a mafia of
narcotraficantes across the Americas.

There are, of course, the real wars to win. Against poverty and
tyranny, against ecological depredation and the marginalization of
the indigenous peoples and their wisdom. The president, with his
immense heart and his inspirational words, could be a fundamental
partner in our quest for a better future.