Chavez's World Tour Continues

Fire of Liberty

I thought you'd like to read a little bit on Hugo Chavez's limited world tour amongst some of the worst dictatorships and authoritarian regimes that the world has seen since the days of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. According to this article, Chavez has been gaining a lot of dictator/populist street-cred in the "Outposts of Tyranny" and amongst the far-left in South and Central America with his visit by meeting with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. Along with gaining street cred, Chavez also signed some seven agreements that ranged from economic, military- technology aid/trade agreements as well as strategic partnership between the two dictatorial regimes. I'd say that this courtship with the likes of Belarus, Iran, North Korea and arm deals with China and Russia will result in some serious problems for the neighbors of Venezuela and the US in the near future. I know we've got enough problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Al-Qaeda but things could heat up in our backyard pretty quick.

For me, it would be far better to confront Chavez now but from the looks of things the US will play a Cold War style containment policy and make it our utmost effort to support the forces of democracy within the surrounding countries of Venezuela in hopes of keeping him holed up within his borders. Here's hoping for a Cold War senario than some larger conflict sparking up.