Not long ago, Central America was a big part of our foreign policy discussion in the US.  Remember the contras? Noriega and the Panama invasion?  El Salvador civil war? We don't have those problems anymore and we've spent a lot of time looking at Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and so on.  Nevertheless, the region faces violence and economic challenges.   It is also a source of illegal immigration to the US. Last Sunday, the left won the first round of the El Salvador election, as reported in The NY Times: "In El Salvador, a divided right may have benefited the front-runner of the left-leaning Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, known as the F.M.L.N., which appeared in good position to hold on to the presidency. It won the office for the first time in 2009, after a string of losses to conservatives following peace accords in 1992 ended one of the bloodiest civil wars in the Americas. The F.M.L.N. candidate, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former...(Read Full Post)