Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem
By TRAVIS PANTIN
In December 1998, preaching a gospel of socialist revolution that had gone blessedly unvoiced in the decade following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hugo Chávez won a landslide election for the presidency of Venezuela. At the time, his governing philosophy, dubbed "Chávismo," seemed unlikely to amount to more than a historical and geographical anomaly—a temporary reversal in a region that appeared to have decisively rejected Marxist nostrums.
Nearly another decade has passed since Mr. Chávez's ascension. He has suffered a few setbacks in the intervening years, notably a temporary ouster in a 2002 coup and a defeat in a referendum last year that, if passed, would have effectively made him dictator for life. His propensity for wild rhetoric and diktats—as when he created a new time zone by fiat in December 2007, moving the clocks in Venezuela back a half-hour to address the inability of his countrymen to arrive promptly at appointments—has led to questions about his emotional and mental stability. It has also made it easier for Western policy makers to discount the seriousness of his oft-stated goal of fomenting violent political change throughout Latin America.
But to dismiss Mr. Chávez as a lunatic is to wish away his proven political skill. He is, without question, a powerful figure—and one who, thanks to a quirk of geography, is also in possession of dangerously large amounts of oil. His government claims to control over 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, by far the largest of any country in the Western hemisphere. Although estimates vary, at current production levels and prices Venezuela's oil revenues may top $250 million daily.
Unlike Fidel Castro, who as a client of the Soviet Union had to apply to his patron for funds, Mr. Chávez is thus free to indulge his ambitions. "In Venezuela we have a strong oil card to play on the geopolitical table," he told the Argentinian newspaper Clarín in 2005. "It is a card," he added, "that we are going to play forcefully against the nastiest country in the world, the United States."
By TRAVIS PANTIN
In December 1998, preaching a gospel of socialist revolution that had gone blessedly unvoiced in the decade following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hugo Chávez won a landslide election for the presidency of Venezuela. At the time, his governing philosophy, dubbed "Chávismo," seemed unlikely to amount to more than a historical and geographical anomaly—a temporary reversal in a region that appeared to have decisively rejected Marxist nostrums.
Nearly another decade has passed since Mr. Chávez's ascension. He has suffered a few setbacks in the intervening years, notably a temporary ouster in a 2002 coup and a defeat in a referendum last year that, if passed, would have effectively made him dictator for life. His propensity for wild rhetoric and diktats—as when he created a new time zone by fiat in December 2007, moving the clocks in Venezuela back a half-hour to address the inability of his countrymen to arrive promptly at appointments—has led to questions about his emotional and mental stability. It has also made it easier for Western policy makers to discount the seriousness of his oft-stated goal of fomenting violent political change throughout Latin America.
But to dismiss Mr. Chávez as a lunatic is to wish away his proven political skill. He is, without question, a powerful figure—and one who, thanks to a quirk of geography, is also in possession of dangerously large amounts of oil. His government claims to control over 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, by far the largest of any country in the Western hemisphere. Although estimates vary, at current production levels and prices Venezuela's oil revenues may top $250 million daily.
Unlike Fidel Castro, who as a client of the Soviet Union had to apply to his patron for funds, Mr. Chávez is thus free to indulge his ambitions. "In Venezuela we have a strong oil card to play on the geopolitical table," he told the Argentinian newspaper Clarín in 2005. "It is a card," he added, "that we are going to play forcefully against the nastiest country in the world, the United States."
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