I finally caught up to William Finnegan’s excel­lent arti­cle on Hon­duras from the Nov. 30 The New Yorker. Here’s Finnegan on the fate of the agree­ment that was sup­posed to return Mel Zelaya to power:

On Octo­ber 30th, an accord was finally signed—”a his­toric agree­ment, Hillary Clin­ton said…. The Obama Admin­is­tra­tion had, it seemed, defended a crit­i­cal prin­ci­ple of a new Amer­i­can diplo­macy: coups would not stand.

…

Four days after after the accord was signed, Thomas Shan­non jolted Hon­duras, and much of Latin Amer­ica, by sug­gest­ing, on CNN en Español, that, even if Zelaya were not restored to the Pres­i­dency, the United States would rec­og­nize the results of the Novem­ber elec­tions. Two days later, Sen­a­tor Jim DeMint lifted his hold on the con­fir­ma­tion of Shan­non to become U.S. Ambas­sador to Brazil. Hillary Clin­ton, DeMint said, had assured him that the Admin­is­tra­tion would rec­og­nize the upcom­ing Hon­duras elec­tion results “regardless of whether former Pres­i­dent Manuel Zelaya is returned to office.”

The next day, Novem­ber 6th, Zelaya prou­nounced the accord “dead.” It looked as if an old-​fashioned coup could still suc­ceed in Latin Amer­ica, after all.