Much has been made recently of the development of a highly-polarized left-right division within the Americas.

Each of the three NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) countries is led by a conservative government. In contrast, South American countries have elected an array of left-leaning presidents over the last five years.

This popular image of a left-right divide is reinforced by a number of additional snapshots of the leadership in the region. Fidel Castro continues to cling to power, and to life, in Cuba. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has ratcheted up the level of animosity not only with the United States -- he called U.S. President George W. Bush "the devil" during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September -- but also with the Vicente Fox-Felipe Calderón governments of Mexico.

The most recent addition to this atmosphere of polarization is the near-certain election this week of Daniel Ortega, a revolutionary Marxist who fought against an American-backed Contra insurgency in the 1980s, as president of Nicaragua.

While it's tempting to think we have entered into a new ideological struggle, a quick survey of the main leftist forces in the region illustrates the need for a more nuanced analysis, as opposed to quick and easy assessments.

Chávez, from oil-rich Venezuela, has ridden high energy prices for all they are worth, but has had little diplomatic success in his own region. His attempts to intervene in the elections of his neighbours -- Peru and Ecuador --backfired.

Moreover, Chávez's reputation both as a diplomat and as a manager of domestic economic-social trade-offs has been overshadowed by that of the more pragmatic Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the recently re-elected president of Brazil.

The case of Chile bears witness that middle ground can be found in Latin America. Chile does have a leftist government under a female president, Michelle Bachelet. Yet, it has combined its enormous wealth in natural resources such as copper with the recognition of new possibilities.

Globally, Chile has marvelously balanced its focus on bilateral links with the countries of North America while exploring marketing possibilities in China and India.

Internally, Chile has made some --albeit modest -- steps to reduce domestic inequalities.

Highlighting other aspects of hemispheric politics and society also point to the need for a more nuanced perspective. By design or default, the attitude of the United States toward the region has undergone some changes that have tempered its overall approach to the Americas.

In contrast to the past, it has been hard to detect a sustained U.S. strategic vision for the region since 9/11. The negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would expand NAFTA to include every country in Central and South America and the Caribbean, except Cuba, have stalled. So have several of the trade deals negotiated on a bilateral basis or via the Central America Free Trade Agreement -- with a backlash mounting to ratification even in Costa Rica, a relatively well-to-do country.

The U.S. is no longer capable of driving its agenda forward in the central regional hub through the Organization of the American States (OAS). In 2005, the U.S. was unable to secure the election of its candidate for the new OAS secretary general.

In the same year, it also suffered a setback at the OAS general assembly when it could not mobilize the use of the Inter-American Democratic Charter -- a tool for defending democracy in the hemisphere -- to target the Chávez regime.

It is testimony to the altered environment in the hemisphere that the U.S. has not attempted to compensate for its lack of diplomatic success with strategic muscle. Talk of a new "axis of evil," with Castro and Chávez at its core, has recently receded as top positions in the U.S. State Department dealing with the region are once again being filled by professional bureaucrats rather than political appointees.

And even in the intense and high-stakes Mexican election this past summer, the U.S. did not rattle sabres about what would happen if the radical mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was elected.

These setbacks are part of a greater indication that the danger at hand is not necessarily the revival of a hyper-interventionist U.S., but rather its retreat to a gated community mindset.

In part, this psychology goes hand in hand with the Iraq debacle and it is symbolized by America's security obsession. The plan is not engagement with the region, but rather to wall off its connections -- as is literally the case with the Mexican border.

Andrew F. Cooper is an associate director at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo.