Like the Iranians, the self-styled revolutionary Chavez is using oil revenues to purchase more than just foreign weapons. He's also buying friends and influence beyond his own borders. Fidel Castro is tickled commie-pink over a sweetheart deal he has for acquiring 53,000 barrels of Venezuelan sweet crude every day and over $800 million in unpaid debt -- all in exchange for sending teachers, doctors -- and military advisors -- to Caracas. And he's not the only "Latin leader" benefiting from the Chavez largesse. According to sources in Managua, "Hugo Chavez is the principal financier" for die-hard Sandinista Daniel Ortega, who hopes to become the "come-back communist" in Nicaragua's 2006 elections.
Thus far, Washington's response to these Khatami-Chavez oil-funded provocations has been purely rhetorical. This week, President Bush reiterated his support for the failed European diplomatic initiative aimed at dissuading Iran from nuclear enrichment programs. At the same time, the administration announced plans to "contain" Venezuela's aggressive anti-American agenda -- yet did nothing to deter the delivery of the advanced military hardware being acquired by the Chavez regime.
In little-noticed testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, Gen. Bantz Craddock, the commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command, said that he is "concerned because we don't know the intent" of the Chavez military build-up.
Roger Pardo-Maurer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for western hemisphere affairs, has said that Chavez is "using his oil money and influence to introduce his conflictive style into the politics of other countries," and went on to call it "subversion."
Yet, no one in the White House, State Department or Pentagon has the temerity to say in any communique that what Chavez and Khatami are doing is "unacceptable." That word is apparently being saved for some future statement: "If (insert name here) does (insert act here), that would be unacceptable."
Why the muted response? Because of oil. The slowly recovering U.S. and global economy depends on the slippery black substance. Even the OPEC ministers meeting this week in Isfahan, Iran -- of all places -- recognize that the price per barrel of increasingly scarce crude is very close to squelching the year-old upturn.
Worse yet, everyone knows that the Iranian threat to close the Straits of Hormuz, and Chavez' repeated warnings that he could cut off U.S. supplies of Venezuelan oil -- 15 percent of all we consume -- is real.
The common thread here is U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Sixty percent of all we use is imported. This week's narrow 51-to-49 victory in the U.S. Senate for opening a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for drilling is part of the long-term solution. So, too, are the increased efforts to develop fuel cell alternatives to petroleum power. But both of these responses to the present problem leave us vulnerable in the short term to the aberrant behavior of two wealthy, hostile regimes -- now building an "Axis of Instability" and upping the oil ante just hours south of our borders.
Fueling the fires of freedom in the Middle East and Southwest Asia is important, but so is protecting democracy and free enterprise in our own hemisphere. It's time for the administration to pay closer attention to what's happening close to home. Otherwise, we'll all be paying the price at the pump.