Why Obama Should Meet With Hugo Chavez

The same President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela who rapped a gavel to close a session at the New York Stock exchange in 1999 called President Bush “the devil” in a 2006 speech at the United Nations. Last week he announced that despite rumors to the contrary and a freefalling price of oil he would continue a home heating oil charity program in the US which totaled $100 million and reached over a quarter of a million families last year. With this gesture of good will from Caracas and Bush out of office, will President-elect Obama be open to dialogue with the US’ one-time ally?


US-Venezuelan relations have never been worse than those Obama will inherit. In September both countries withdrew their ambassadors. Among the many issues straining the relationship are Venezuela’s close relationship with Castro’s Cuba, and the Bush Administration’s support for a short-lived coup d’état that temporarily ousted Chávez in 2002. The collapsing relationship between Washington and the US’ fourth largest supplier of imported oil is too strategically significant to ignore: regardless of what one thinks of Chávez’s politics—love him or hate him---it should be obvious that Obama could score an easy political victory by initiating a détente.


During the Democratic Party’s primaries, Obama said he would meet without preconditions with heads of state from countries out of favor with the US, including Venezuela. Obama was lambasted by other presidential candidates – Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), called Obama “irresponsible, and, frankly, naive.” Yet the bold stance proved popular with voters—42 percent supported it and just 34 percent opposed, according to a poll last July. Her harsh attacks on Obama’s foreign policy notwithstanding, Hillary Clinton is now all set to become Obama’s Secretary of State. While Clinton may oppose it, if Obama meets with Chávez, he could reap huge dividends and incur little risk.


There are at least four reasons why it is in the US’ interests for President Obama to meet with President Chávez and seek a thaw. First, Obama should not allow the Bush Administration’s failures in Latin America, support for the 2002 coup in Venezuela among them, to define future diplomatic relations. On the campaign trail Obama was unequivocal: “It is time for us to recognize that the future security and prosperity of the US is fundamentally tied to the future of the Americas. If we don’t turn away from the policies of the past, then we won’t be able to shape the future.” The Bush Administration’s vision for Latin America was misguided and its efforts to shape the region failed—take for example the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations. Now the US is about to have a new President and it needs a new Latin America agenda. A bilateral meeting with Chávez would also be a concrete way to prove to American voters and the world that the “change” Obama ran on was more than just a slogan.


Second, if Obama could shape a future with Venezuela as a partner of the US in the Western Hemisphere, there are myriad areas for cooperation from the strategic—energy independence, drug interdiction, and military exchanges—to the benign. Baseball, America’s national pastime is also Venezuela’s most popular sport; in better days of US-Venezuelan relations Chávez threw out the first pitch at a Mets game.

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http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1671/1/

but I disagree.

1. Chavez is not the leader of latin america. Lula and Calderon have much more prominent positions. Argentina and Chile have more influence. Peru and Colombia have at least as much. Colombia is a US ally. like their administration or not, Colombia has remained close to the US. Obama will not push Colombia away, nor should he. Chavez, Correa, and Morales are way down on the list of "must" meetings particularly with the collapse of oil. Relations with WILLING partners will and should occur prior to offers of courtesy to Chavez. to sum up, good relations with Latin American are not dependent on good relations with Chavez.

2. the argument becomes very weak. all of those issues need to be discussed with other nations as well. issues of common concern are not limited to Venezuela and frankly there are more pressing issues from Mexico or the region wide drug trade where Ven plays a part but not the lead. common cultural passions are also not limited to Ven. baseball is huge in the DR, Panama, Mexico, and supported to some extent Colombia as well. Rock and roll and movies are enjoyed by Latin america as well, but that is no reason to host bilateral talks at the presidential level.

below are the other two points from the article. fyi: there seems to be no problem posting entire artilces on this forum section.

but first my responses:

3. sure we compete with China but this reeks of cold war mentality. its latin americans who will decide which countries they will deal with. I suspect it is not an either or proposition. latin countries will act in THEIR best interest not necessary ours or China's. a very bad and archaic argument this is.

4. on the contrary!!!! A meeting with Chavez would dramatically increase Chavez's standing, not diminish it. this is absolutely ridiculous. If Chavez thought a meeting with Obama would diminish his stature, he wouldn't go for it. but that is absolutely not the case. you're damn right Chavez wants to meet with Obama, but the request must be earned. Chavez is digging himself into a hole.

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Third, improving relations with Chávez may help counter China’s growing influence in Latin America, where that country is directly competing with the US for natural resources, diplomatic influence, and investment opportunities. Latin America has an historic affinity with the US but China has filled the void left as the Bush Administration focused on war in the Middle East. Despite a long history of political intervention, support for military dictatorships, and CIA sponsored coups, the US and Latin America also share a general commitment to democracy, and deeply rooted economic ties. A meeting with Chávez—himself highly influential amongst Latin America’s growing left coalition of governments—could be a key first step to reaffirming the US’s commitment to a partnership with the region.


Finally, there is a fourth point that should appeal to Chávez’s harshest critics. A bilateral meeting would be the most significant thing a US President could do to temper his power. Chávez, like his friend Fidel Castro before him, benefits from the specter of a hostile US. Rhetoric about US imperialism and interventionism appeals to Venezuelans’ pride in their sovereignty, and unifies Chávez’s base against a perceived enemy; it also distracts them from real problems in their country and political process. The Bush Administration’s disgraceful complicity with the plot to overthrow Chávez’s democratic government in 2002, and its subsequent funneling of money and political support to an isolated, fragmented opposition in Venezuela played right into Chávez’s hands. If Obama demonstrated that the US government is not Venezuela’s enemy, he would accomplish far more than the millions of dollars the Bush Administration has invested in destabilizing Venezuela’s government. Venezuela, like all democracies, benefits from free and open public debate but the political process is derailed, civil society distracted by the threat—real or exaggerated—of US intervention. Obama has the political capital and the credibility to singlehandedly restore the world’s faith in the goodwill of the US; Venezuela is a perfect place to start.