Hemispheric Problem #1: Hugo Chavez

Steven Taylor at Poliblog wrote an op-ed for yesterday's Mobile Register (registration) reminding us again that Chavez's radicalism may destabilize not only Venezuela but the whole region. Exporting revolution with oil dollars is nothing new -- the Saudis have become adept at it over the years. Doing it through the destruction of a country that formerly served as a model for Latin American democracy, however, is both new and disturbing.

My comments on the recent election, and Jimmy Carter's role in sanctioning Chavez's corruption, may be found here.

Update: Brent thinks I overstated Venezuela's democratic record in the above post, and I'll buy that with the proviso that in pre-Chavez days it was far more of a democracy than it's likely to be under Chavez. Certainly from 1958 onwards the country could have benefited from a thriving entrepreneurial class so that the middle class might have grown considerably, and I didn't mean to imply the existence of an American-style democracy pre-Chavez. As for the election, Rafael Alfonzo of Caracas has a letter to the editor in today's WSJ ($). As a member of the commission that helped negotiate the the election monitoring agreement between the opposition, the Carter Center, and the OAS, he contrasts Jimmy Carter's desire that care and patience be exercised four years ago in Florida with his careless acceptance of the results of Venezuela's election.