Venezuela sits alongside Colombia where I live on the northern coast of South America. It's a lovely country that I've had the fortune to visit. And it's an incredible dichotomy. With a population about that of Saudi Arabia it has
more known oil reserves--indeed, the most in the world. It's also blessed with a
cornucopia of other resources such as natural gas, gold, nickel, iron ore, steel, diamond, aluminum, coal, bauxite, and lots of arable land instead of blowing sand.
Yet instead of becoming the Saudis of South America, what Hugo Chávez and his socialist "
Bolivarian Revolution"
left behind when he died of cancer a year ago after a 14-year reign is a nation racked by poverty. Yes it's decreased, but
considerably less than in other South American nations and progress has stopped. It's been
devastated by inflation and shortages of necessities. Venezuela has also become one of the
most violent nations on earth and the
most corrupt in Latin America.
How could this happen?
So preoccupied was Chávez with trying to be the first national leader to show socialism can actually work that he neglected to maintain Venezuela's oil infrastructure. Prior to his taking power, exports were
increasing every year. They could have been a Mercedes in every garage--or at least a nice Volkswagen. Instead, the nation hosts some of the worst shanty towns on earth. I've seen them--from a safe distance.
Instead, oil production has fallen
by about a quarter, exports
by half. Nor did the bold Red Beret make any efforts to diversify the economy: The country depends on oil for 95 percent of its exports and 45 percent of its
federal budget revenues.
By continuing down the same road, his successor
by electoral trickery, Nicolás Maduro, promises more of the same. Now the natives have become restless and many are fighting and paying with their lives, while opposition leaders are tossed in prison.
Can or should the U.S. do anything to help?
No one else can; other countries and international organizations
have tried. But Venezuela has no real strategic importance. Chávez's efforts to "export" his revolution never got further than since-defeated efforts to
aid Colombia's FARC terrorists. He wasn't "crazy like a fox" as so many U.S. Latin American "policy experts" tried to portray him; just plain ol' crazy.
Maduro won't even try where his predecessor failed. Cuban troops don't make the crisis international; they're a show of support in exchange for
their country's sweetheart deals with Venezuela.
As to the petroleum needs, while rumors of U.S. oil independence from
tapping shale have been greatly exaggerated, the nation
is moving in that direction and precisely because of Chavez's ruinous policies U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude
are the lowest since 1985.
Indeed, dependency is Venezuela's problem. The country needs the U.S. to buy 40 percent of its exports because Gulf of Mexico refineries were designed to process the thick Venezuelan and Mexican crudes that most refineries cannot easily handle. But in recent years, the United States has been replacing its imports of Latin American crude with similarly-heavy petroleum from Canadian oil sands fields.
On the other hand, Libya had no strategic value to the U.S.,
yet it went to war there and Pres. Obama
wanted to do something similar in Syria. And what strategic value has Ukraine? Venezuela at least is closer to home; flights from Miami are less than three hours.
What If?
If the U.S. decides to take action against Venezuela, that nation's reliance on U.S. refineries makes for America's greatest tool. Indeed, some politicians have requested that the Obama Administration
cut imports by at least 10 percent. But encouraging revolution by inflicting greater pain on a people is both morally and strategically dubious.
Fact is, Chávez and Maduro have proved impervious to the suffering of their people. Moreover, restricting imports would play directly to Chávez -Maduro claims that the U.S. is behind
all of Venezuela's problems, from hangnails to halitosis. Other countries in the area also might see this as U.S. bullying, something they've been sensitized to after many generations of U.S. interference in the area.
And make no mistake, China will be there to "help." China is the real strategic threat in Latin America, through incredibly crafty trade deals, loans, and other aid. Just months ago
it invested $14 billion in Venezuelan oil development, and has loaned the country $40 billion to get dirt-cheap oil in return.
Meanwhile U.S. oil refineries plus major oil companies like Chevron and Citgo, would fight tooth-and-claw against any restriction on Venezuelan imports.
Sadly, this all might be academic if during a two-day 2002 military coup, of which the
CIA had advance notice, the U.S. had been more pro-active in keeping Chavez from returning to power.
But with most conditions far worse now than then and still decaying, there's an excellent chance of a similar coup against Maduro. Wikileaks cables
show the U.S. has long been engaged in low-level efforts to destabilize Chávez, without apparently causing hardship to the people. Presumably those continue and perhaps can be stepped up. But if and when there's another coup, the U.S. should have a plan in place cooperating with sympathetic governments and including mutual aid packages such as the Chinese have worked out.
One day Venezuela will both be free and, to paraphrase Daffy Duck, "Rich, rich, faaaabulously wealthy!" Alas, it won't be today.
