It is common among many of us nowadays to see the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as signalling an entirely new phase in world history. We see it as an example of a new rampant and raging imperialism. The sole superpower has abandoned any pretence at legality, and will proceed to do exactly what it wants anywhere it wants because of its greater military strength. And many of us have also felt that this effectively constitutes a new conjuncture in international capitalism, one in which multilateralism will become less significant, and forms of control will become more overt and more oppressive.

But recently, a friend from Central America, visiting Asia, provided a slightly different perspective. Alejandro Bendana from Nicaragua worked for the Sandinista government in a high capacity; he has subsequently been involved in progressive political and social activism within Nicaragua, in what has often been a largely hostile environment.

Alejandro pointed out that for those living in Central and South America, this supposedly 'new' aggressive attitude of the United States is nothing new at all. For most of that continent, any attempt at political and economic change is (and has been for a century now) a constant balancing act between how much can be achieved internally and the extent of toleration of the administration in Washington.

Nicaragua, for example, was invaded five times in the past century. And many countries of that region have been invaded, if not periodically, then at least sufficiently often to keep the memory and perception of immanent invasion constantly alive. The cases of open and less open intervention of the US are only too numerous across the continent: Chile during the Allende regime; Panama; Grenada; all the dictators and disgusting army rulers who were openly propped up by the US to serve their own interests. The amazing fact about the government in Cuba is that it has somehow managed to survive despite these incredible odds, and despite the overt and covert attempts of the US administration to destroy it.

After the Second World War, over more than two decades, the United States has intervened militarily somewhere in the world every nine months. This apparent hyperactivity all over the world, and especially in the western hemisphere, was only brought to a temporary halt by the Vietnam war. At first this war concentrated the mind and energies of the US government, so that it was not really in a position to engage in too many other places. Then, when it became apparent that despite the bombing and continued aggression in that peasant society, the US would not win that war, and when it was forced to engage in peace talks from the early 1970s, this acted as a disincentive for further military exploits for a time.

But that period of relatively subdued military interventionism now seems to be at an end. We are now back to business as usual, in terms of active involvement of the US government in destabilizing regimes in other countries, and using force when other means do not seem to work to its satisfaction.

In that sense, said Alejandro, what we have observed in the recent past, in Afghanistan and now in Iraq, may simply represent the 'Central Americanization' of the rest of the world. There is a generation in Asia that was born after the end of the Vietnam war which does not have the same direct sense of the US as imperialist, and which is only now being exposed to what every Central American has known for some time.

If this is indeed the case, and continuity is more important than change in the context of US imperialism today, then it is important for us to learn what our Central American friends and comrades may have to tell us about their own experience.

The first point, Alejandro emphasized, is just how difficult it is to work towards progressive and socialist changes, and to ensure the survival of democratic institutions and processes. The capacity of the US administration for malevolence cannot be underestimated, he said. It is not just the use of force and open and violent aggression to ensure its own interests, which serves as a threat and a warning to others. It is also the continuous use of all levers of power and the cynical manipulation of even normal discontent, to subvert democratic and socialist experiments. The use of the media, for example, has become one of the potent instruments of control, subversion and manipulation of political processes.

The second point, however, is that despite this very depressing overall context, progressive alternatives are still possible, and some regimes manage to survive. Cuba is the most outstanding example; but currently, even the regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has managed to survive the most recent attempt by the US, using rightwing elements within the country, to destabilize it through the oil strike.

Third, even across this region that is Uncle Sam's backyard and that has been for so long the object of its domination, there are growing indications of dissent and popular demands for democratic and socialist alternatives which require defying the US. The overwhelming victory of the Workers' Party candidate Lula in the Brazilian election; the victories of other progressive candidates elsewhere in the continent; the growing recognition of the demands of indigenous populations in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and elsewhere-all point to the substantial shift in politics.

In this context, said Alejandro ironically, the progressive movements in Latin America may be even relieved that the US has shifted its attention elsewhere and is now too busy to try and exercise the same degree of relentless control over the politics and economics of the region. Meanwhile, the dissenting movements in Asia will find much to learn from their Latin American counterparts.