Keep Your Friends Close
We’re not friends with Venezuela any more, but Libya, on the other hand, are buds. Why does the Bush Administration’s policy on Hugo Chavez – and it is exactly that: a policy of personal animosity – remind me so much of those old Cold War “spheres of influence” arguments, such as were previously used to install General Pinochet in Chile, for example? I’m all in favor of granting Colonel Muammar el-Qadaffi better status in the world now that he’s renounced his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and his support for terrorism, but he’s still an evil dictator. Does his turnabout make him so different from Chavez, who now appears to be headed towards creating a dictatorship for himself, or is this just a question of who’s our dictator and who’s a rogue (or otherwise aligned: he may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard)? I seem to remember some other Middle Eastern dictator coming to grief recently after having enjoyed decades as the golden boy of the U.S. The days of real politik never ended, did they? It all just changed hands, from the old imperialists of Europe to the new hegemony of D.C. alone. I’ve criticized Bush for his Cabinet picks before: they’re all the failed Cold Warriors of previous administrations or of academia, so the rhetoric they and they’re supporters (and their ostensible boss, Bush himself) continue to spout over the changed world we now live in falls flat, flatter every day, in fact. We could have engaged Chavez and Qadaffi positively and achieved good relations and a better outcome for all. Instead, we’re playing the old games and making the same mistakes. No wonder George is Mr. 29%.