I've long considered myself a realist as far as foreign policy is concerned. Yes, during the Cold War I'd have loved it if all our allies were constitutional democracies, but given the price we'd pay for losing to the Soviets, I was willing to hold my nose and support authoritatian regimes that helped us against the main enemy. I figured we should quietly prod such friends to be more democratic and to respect human rights while bashing our enemies for similar behavior. I felt--and feel--no guilt for that outlook. Taiwan is today better than China. South Korea better than North Korea. You fight with the allies you have--not the ones you'd like to have.
Since 9-11, I've come to viewing the reform of the Islamic world as the only realist option to dealing with the problem of Islamist jihadis. I don't see it as a particularly idealistic position. I don't, for example, see why we should waste military efforts saving Zimbabwe when the African continent doesn't care and the vaunted international community doesn't care. Zimbabwe is a tragedy that we can assist others in addressing if they take the lead, but our resources must be focused on our main enemy. Our resources are not unlimited and we will not bear any burden to solve any problem anywhere in the world.
That said, as we focus on the Axis of Evil and A of E wannabees, we must not neglect what is going on south of here in our own hemisphere. Unlike Zimbabwe, Venezuela under the tinpot thug Hugo Chavez has oil, is close to us geographically, and is allied with Castro's Cuba. Like Zimbabwe, Venezuela is also forging closer ties with communist China. Nice, eh?
Winds of Change has a good report on developments in Venezuela. This one sentence sums it up:
While exporting and creating instability in Latin American neighbors, Hugo Chavez is busy consolidating legal and extra-legal power in Venezuela.This vile one is trying his hardest to achieve evil-level capabilities. At some point we will need to take notice of his actions. While it would be cheaper to do so now rather than later, this also runs into our need to deal with jihadis now. Even though we have the power to deal with him, I think our national will to deal with problems is limited. Take on too many secondary problems now and the public won't support later action against primary threats.
So we watch. And wait. And constantly judge whether Chavez remains vile and annoying or whether he achieves evil and threatening. And if he achieves the latter, judge what we must do and can afford to do.
Or who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and he'll slip and fall in the shower, breaking his neck.
