MANAGUA It has been more than two decades since this tiny nation of five million people and its revolutionary strongman, Daniel Ortega, kept Washington awake at night. In recent months, new fears, but the same old politics, have revived that tossing and turning.
Ortega, one of the United States' fiercest opponents during the cold war and the entrenched leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front, has opened his fourth campaign for the Nicaraguan presidency.
Washington is worried once again that its old nemesis might win, this time with consequences for a new global war, the one terrorism.
Even though the Nicaragua elections are more than a year and a half away, and even though Ortega's chances seem slim, the Bush administration is taking no risks and has begun concerted efforts to stop him.
The clearest signal came two weeks ago when the United States suspended about $2.3 million in military aid to Nicaragua to put pressure on the government, and an army with roots in the Sandinista movement, to destroy its arsenal of Soviet-made SA-7 missiles.
But pressure had been building since January, when a sting operation by the United States and Nicaraguan authorities netted two Nicaraguan men trying to sell an SA-7, a shoulder-fired missile that terrorism experts consider a potential threat to civilian aircraft. The sting set off alarms among conservative Republicans, and the State Department sent two high-level delegations to Nicaragua.
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