On the one hand, the man's gift for verbosity, which was exhibited in all its varied moods not only at the UN General Assembly but in his one-on-one interview with Larry King, provides much ground for amusement.
On the other, this self-anointed successor to Fidel Castro and single-handed inventor of the latest gimcrack form of "socialism" dubbed "Bolivarianism," has shown a definite propensity for authoritarianism, suppression, and regional troublemaking.
His anti-Americanism is rather much standard issue and nothing to be particularly concerned over. His Yankee bashing plays well with his base and helps divert attention from the decaying economy. There is no surprise that Chavez has blamed that on the US as if the US alone has caused the global decline in oil prices, a reality which has hit Venezuela hard.
Chavez needs the myth of the US-as-Empire in order to keep his hands on the levers of power. This is why he has pumped the recent not-quite-finalized agreement between the US and Columbia to allow US drug enforcement efforts including those of the military to be based on seven Columbian military installations into a full-fledged invasion threat.
Without the scary Americans, questions might be asked even among Venezuela's poorest people--Chavez' base--about why he is spending a couple of billion scarce bucks on Russian arms rather than on them. A Latin American dictator has historically possessed two choices if he wanted to stay in power. The first was to proclaim his wedding to the anti-Communist status quo and get the unquestioning support of American administrations one after the other. The second option was to announce often and loudly that "The Yankees are coming! The Marines are landing! The CIA is trying to kill me!"
Chavez took the second route even though the Clinton administration treated him with the kindest of kid gloves and the Obama administration is doing likewise. The man in the middle, George W. Bush, did not and that was a mistake. The animus held by the Bush/Cheney administration for any anti-American leftist with a large mouth provided Chavez with all the material he needed to play repression as self-defense against the empire.
Probably more through preoccupation with matters of larger import than the coming of the Hugo Chavez Bolivarian Revolution, the Clinton White House and State Department rather ignored Venezuela. This was the best course to take. It should have been followed by the Bush/Cheney crew as well, but, blinded as always by neocon ideology, they took the Mouth of the South seriously. By doing so they transformed Chavez from an irrelevancy to a problem.
During the years of Bush/Cheney, Chavez not only tied himself to the aging "socialists" of Cuba and Nicaragua, but to a pair of ideological companions, Ewo Morales, the elected Los Indios jefe grande of Bolivia and Rafael Correa, the US educated economist turned Ecuadorian president. The "Bolivarian Revolution" had two bloodless conquests and now had to be taken seriously as a political force in South America.
The "Bolivarian" movement promises "Socialism For the Twenty-First Century" but so far seems to be the same old sort of destroy-the-bourgeois-raise-the-proletariat approach to economic, social, and political life. The "Bolivarian" version does have the add-on of oil and natural gas which should provide the "socialists" of all three countries with the means to alleviate poverty, end illiteracy, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and generally bring the paradise on Earth which"socialism" always promises those on the bottom of the heap.
In the past the advent of a socialist regime has generally meant the enhancement of government power, the increasing restrictions of customary rights and immunities enjoyed by citizens, a hike in "defense" expenditures, and breathless "revolutionary" oratory in all the official media. This pattern has been followed by all three members of the Chavez headed "Bolivarian" movement.
Social unrest, middle-class flight, and the other usual accessories of a socialist takeover have also been observed in all three countries with Venezuela exhibiting them to the greatest degree. How any of this has benefited the "wretched" of each is unclear. Perhaps saying, "Well, he is one of us, one of the poor, a man of the masses," makes up for continued inequalities of economic and political power and social status. Perhaps it even provides comfort when stores lack milk or other basic commodities. (No, Hugo, the US didn't do that either.)
The US and other Western countries have much to answer for in South America given the overall impact of "globalization" and "de-regulation" on the people in a number of South American countries. The rush to globalization, which started in the Clinton administration and continued with some acceleration under its successors, did much damage to those least able to absorb it throughout much of South America.
It is not surprising that many accepted that change, radical change, was called for in the wake of "privatization" and its handmaiden "globalization." It is unfortunate, and for the US a potentially major problem that the radical change taken brought ambitious strongmen typified by Hugo Chavez to power.
Chavez has established relations with both Iran and its proxy Hezbollah so as to establish outposts of state sponsored Islamist jihadism in the Western Hemisphere--which is a threat compared to which the supposed threat posed by Communist Cuba pales into deserved insignificance. He has clear ambitions of becoming some sort of leader in the global South.
The recently concluded Second South America-Africa Summit held in Venezuela and graced by such as Colonel Gaddafi and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is a fine demonstration of this. It is easy, quite tempting really, to toss off this grandiose meeting as being irrelevant.
The easy temptation must be resisted. There is quite a bit of barely concealed frustration, pent up hostility, resident in both South America and Africa. The totem of victim status is waved quickly, easily, and with great effect by leaders from these regions. The message of both Chavez and Gaddafi that the "imperial nations" owe compensation for the presumed exploitation of their colonial adventures has wide appeal. The increasing populations and decreasing prices for agricultural and extracted commodities have combined to generate increasing poverty and its concomitants, resentment and envy in many places in both continents.
Hugo Chavez has shown a real ability at exploiting and capitalizing upon latent resentments, unsuppressed envy, and hardly covert hatred. He is young, ambitious beyond measure, and highly able. He is more of a regional politician than Fidel Castro ever was. His internal politics and external diplomacy shows that.
Managing the problems and mitigating the potential threat presented by Chavez is a genuine challenge for the Obama administration and State Department. Benign neglect will no longer suffice as it did in the days of Bill Clinton. The opposition of the Bush/Cheney period would be counterproductive. What remains is the middle path of accepting Chavez as a fact on the ground while letting him know politely but unmistakably that there are lines he cannot cross without severe consequences.
Hugo Chavez said both at the UNGA and on the Larry King broadcast that he wants to be treated with respect, the respect of an equal. Take him at his word. Let him know there are limits and what the limits are. Let him know what the consequences will be if he violates the limits.
After all, friends treat friends with honesty, Hugo.
