Venezuela Crisis Has Superpower in a Bind

The Bush administration is straining to find the right tone in its approach to the growing crisis in Venezuela. One day White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says the U.S. would like to see new presidential elections; the next day, it’s a referendum.

Whatever it is, Fleischer emphasizes that it ought to happen democratically, within “the confines of the constitution of Venezuela.”

However, at a time when Washington can least afford to see oil production disrupted, few people in Latin America believe the U.S. claim that it stands for democratic rule. Washington’s influence in Venezuela’s crisis has been deeply eroded by its own actions.

During normal times, the U.S. imports 14% of its oil from the South American nation. But these are not normal times. The Venezuelan oil industry is practically paralyzed by a nationwide strike by opponents of President Hugo Chavez. The U.S. is poised for a possible war in Iraq, which could disrupt oil supplies in the Persian Gulf.

From Washington’s perspective, the timing of the troubles in Caracas could hardly be worse. Venezuelans are passionately divided; though millions of Chavez’s opponents want him out of office, millions of his supporters -- many of them armed civilians -- say they will do what it takes to keep him in power. The ingredients for a disastrous civil war are in place.

The U.S. would like to defuse the situation, but it is reaping what it sowed in April, when Washington spectacularly mishandled the Venezuelan crisis. It proclaimed support for the overthrow of the controversial, but nonetheless democratically elected, Chavez.

Like many in Washington, Latin American leaders would like to see the Chavez era end. But the region has struggled over the last two decades to create and strengthen democratic institutions. That’s why when a bungled coup removed Chavez from power for 48 hours, Latin American governments quickly spoke out against what was a flagrant violation of democratic principles.

Washington, however, rushed to celebrate, blamed Chavez for his own fate and accepted the coup plotters’ false assertion that the president had resigned.

Many in the region accused Washington of involvement with the coup. Administration officials offered conflicting accounts of meetings with the leaders of the anti-Chavez movement. Some said U.S. authorities had offered tacit support for the forceful removal of the president; others maintained that the U.S. had urged the opposition to work through constitutional means.

The U.S. would be overjoyed if Chavez left office. The former paratrooper has been a burr under Washington’s saddle. The nation that was once a reliable and friendly supplier of oil has become a source of constant worry since Chavez took office four year ago.

His inflammatory leftist rhetoric has been consistently anti-American. He accused the U.S., in attacking the Taliban, of committing a crime as great as that of Sept. 11. He has successfully pushed for OPEC to control production and thus push oil prices higher.

To rally OPEC unity he has visited Moammar Kadafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran and Fidel Castro -- his close personal friend -- in Havana.

It’s not only Washington that dislikes Chavez. His sympathy for Colombia’s leftist guerrillas has caused friction with the neighboring country, and his friendship with Castro has worried many in the hemisphere.

But nowhere is the displeasure more intense than among Chavez’s own people.

Chavez, who once tried to take power through a coup, has enraged middle- and upper-class Venezuelans with inflammatory populist rhetoric and political moves that concentrate power in his own hands. During his tenure, the poverty that already affected a majority of Venezuelans has become even more pervasive. Yet many of the poor, who see him as one of them, revere him.

Ironically, events in Venezuela may have more power to influence Washington’s actions than vice versa.

If the two-week anti-Chavez strike that has crippled Venezuela’s oil production does not end soon, Washington will find it very difficult to launch a war in Iraq.

After marching out of step with the rest of the hemisphere in April, Washington is now offering its support to the mediation efforts of the Organization of American States and hoping for the sake of its oil supply and its Iraq plans that these efforts will succeed. The lesson once again is that the great superpower is not all-powerful.