MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Image costs of “Malvinizing” the “desired Islands”

The strong “Malvinization” of Argentina's foreign policy will certainly benefit the Kirchner administration domestically, but will also deteriorate the country's image to the eyes of the developed world writes columnist James Nielson in the latest edition of Noticias magazine.

Nielson a respected journalist, political analyst and former editor of The Buenos Aires Herald adds that those costs won't bother president Nestor Kirchner at all, who from the moment he took office has had foreign policy "tightly subordinated to his own domestic interests", but maybe "he should take those costs into consideration".

In the column "Those islands, so desired", Nielsen says that in Britain the prevailing opinion links the new Malvinas claims drive and "patriotic resurgence" to President Kirchner's re-election bid in 2007, which has already started, and the fact that the Argentine leader is a born political brawler. And the time for the "Kirchnerite" attack on perfidious Albion has arrived.

The pretext, the recent decision by the Falklands government, supported by their "British protectors", to grant 25 year long fishing licences, a pragmatic fisheries conservation measure which has been described by Buenos Aires as "arrogant and imperialist unilateralism", a further "treacherous attempt" to consolidate British presence in disputed waters.

However writes Nielsen, Argentina does not need any further "Lebensraum" (vital space), it has more than enough and fisheries have never been a priority. And if the time comes when Argentina can get hold of the Islands' riches for reasons of pride future administrations will be compelled to pour massive resources, at taxpayers cost. "The campaign for Malvinas is far more important than the Islands themselves, whose value for Argentina is symbolic".

But although it's not clear yet how far the Kirchner administration and "circumstantial" allies are prepared to push ahead, "there are signs that foreign policy will not be entirely malvinized or become a top priority". Rather, groups of citizens will passionately claim the Islands, --even when few of them would choose to live there--, helping to create in Argentina a climate similar to that of the first phases of the World Football Cup with abundant competitive patriotism and sky-blue and white flags flying all around.

And even if this is the scenario, having a leader who seems to take pleasure out of diplomatic skirmishes, it will become increasingly difficult for Argentina "to fully integrate to the world", leaving behind the relative isolation born out of the belligerent default and the unfriendly treatment of multinational corporations who committed the "mistake" of pouring billions of dollars in Argentina, underlines Nielsen.

Furthermore there are growing suspicions overseas that Mr. Kirchner has far more in common with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales than with Brazil's Lula da Silva or Chile's Michelle Bachelet.

And in the event of an outburst of "Malvinas nationalism" it would only help to confirm that suspicion and Argentina's growing closeness to the South American version of the "axis of evil".

In a passage of his column Nielsen has kind words for former president Carlos Menem's seduction policy. When you have two sides that can be as equally strong in nationalist stances, in practical terms a seduction policy is far more intelligent. However, it's a decades' long policy while Argentina turns into an irresistibly attractive country, even for the Islanders, and secondly the Menem strategy was based on friendship when those involved actually saw it as a struggle with a final winner, Argentina.