The Obama Doctrine is over—at least in Latin America.

“Troika of Tyranny” may lack the resonant felicity of George W. Bush’s “axis of evil,” but the reversal in policy captured by Bolton’s phrase is just as necessary as its predecessor. “Under this administration,” Bolton said, “we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this Hemisphere.” The Obama administration took more or less the opposite approach. When then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared in 2013 that the “era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” he enunciated one form of the foreign policy his boss had embraced since the beginning of his administration: Offer financial and diplomatic rewards to dictatorships in the hope that they become more civilized and humane. That approach failed in Iran, which used the relaxation of sanctions in order to pursue its terror-imperialism with greater vigor, and it failed in Latin America the same way. More…