When the de facto government of Honduras buckled under international pressure this weekend, apparently agreeing to bury the hatchet with the president they ousted four months ago, the outcome was hailed throughout the Americas as a major foreign policy triumph for the Obama administration – an old-fashioned Latin American coup had at last been foiled, not supported, by the United States. Some observers wondered, however, whether Mr Obama’s erstwhile political rival and now Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had not pulled off a little coup of her own.

Under a power-sharing agreement brokered by the US Assistant Secretary of State, Thomas Shannon, the Honduran congress will decide whether to reinstate the ousted leftist president Manuel Zelaya. A government of national unity and a team of foreign observers will oversee elections scheduled for November 29. Mr Zelaya, who was sent into exile on June 28 and has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since September 21, will not be running for office, but neither will his foe Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president. Under the agreement a truth commission will be set up to investigate the coup and its causes, and there will be no political amnesty for anyone on either side.

Most members of Congress backed Mr Zelaya’s overthrow at the time, but his supporters expect them to approve the deal in the hope that by reinstating the president, trade and diplomatic relations will be rapidly restored with Honduras’ neighbours.

Mrs Clinton hailed the agreement as “historic” and a “big step forward for the inter-American system”.

But conservative sceptics in the US and Honduras doubt that Mr Zelaya, who is a close ally of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, will step aside and abandon his dream of pushing through constitutional reforms that would enable him to seek re-election. His supporters, on the other hand, are worried that congress may ultimately reject the plan, plunging the country into a deeper crisis.

“The agreement that Mr Shannon worked out does show that, despite all the hand-wringing about the United States losing influence in the region and Brazil’s rapid rise, the United States remains indispensable in the conduct of hemispheric affairs,” said Eric Farnsworth of the Council of the Americas, a US-based organisation whose members include major multinationals with interests in Latin America.

US liberals who sympathise with Mr Zelaya point to a possible discrepancy between Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama on the crisis, not least because throughout the crisis a former Clinton aide has been vigorously championing the cause of the Honduran coup leaders. This would seem to be at odds with Mr Obama’s strong condemnation of the coup.

Lanny Davis, who is best known as former President Bill Clinton’s counsel during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, has lobbied US members of Congress on the coup leaders’ behalf and testified against Mr Zelaya before the House Foreign Relations Committee. Among his Honduran employers are Camilo Atala, a prominent banker, and Jorge Canahuati Larach, a newspaper publisher and fast food restaurant tycoon, who leftwing Hondurans say are among a group of 10 families who have run Honduras for years. They fear Mr Zelaya was steering Honduras too far to the left and had grown too close to Mr Chávez.

“It is an undisputed fact that Mr Zelaya has violated the constitution,” Mr Davis has said.

US liberals disagree. “The tragedy is that the Canahuatis and the Atalas don’t understand that it’s in their best interest to do things like help people make a decent living, reduce unemployment, and raise the minimum wage,” said Robert White, president of the Centre for International Policy.