Iran president visits Venezuela

[2952-0-0]

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-11-voa42.cfm

Chavez must be mad. I used to admire him for standing up to the United States, but he has crossed the line between standing up to the US ad being anti-American. I voted 2.

[Umengus]

I voted 1 but it's a very very bad idea. Iran is dangerous country for the peace in the world. It's also a theocracy which must be removed. Hence, my support for chavez was 8/10, now it's just 5/10

[Erc]

Well, Khatami's not the worst Iranian out there, but still...that's Chavez for you.

[phk]

At least he didn't meet with Khameni

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

while it sucks, Chavez really could use any ally he can get. It's not any worse than Bush meeting with that thug Karimov from Uzbekistan.

[TexasPatriot2024]

Thats kinda scary. What did they meet about? Think about if the middle east gets angry, the only other place we get lots of oil from is Venusala. That bothers me that if we end up going to war with iran we will probaly be cut off from venusulain oil.

[WMS]

Thats kinda scary. What did they meet about? Think about if the middle east gets angry, the only other place we get lots of oil from is Venusala. That bothers me that if we end up going to war with iran we will probaly be cut off from venusulain oil.

Chavez is already looking for any excuse whatsoever to cut the U.S. off from Venezuelan oil. He's already gone from 'if we do something against him' to 'if we do something anywhere in Latin America that he disagrees with' and is probably heading toward 'if we do anything, anywhere, that he doesn't like'. On the positive side, when Chavez does finally cut off oil and creates the price shock he wants, the American public will likely move from their current indifference toward Chavez to open hostility toward him, since they'll know very well who is responsible for this. He might well survive, but pissing off the American public at-large is not a good idea. Right, France?

What's funny is that we've spent most of his administration ignoring him.* This guy suffers from the knee-jerk Anti-American Third World Syndrome, where the U.S. is evil and responsible for anything wrong, anywhere, and thus any of our enemies, no matter how bad, is an ally.

What a ing pendejo...

*Yes, I know about that half-assed coup attempt in 2002. If we were really determined to be rid of him, we would've been by now. The U.S. wasn't really expecting that to happen, although my Stratfor sources did indicate we had contacts with two of the three factions that launched the coup. However, those sources also indicated that these were lower-level gov't officials and that the upper echelons didn't know about it.

[angus]

no, and no.

at least this explains the two-dollar-a-gallon fuel prices lately.

[WMS]

no, and no.

at least this explains the two-dollar-a-gallon fuel prices lately.

Oh, yeah, I was a no/no voter as well.

And those prices will get worse if Chavez gets his way.
Summary of latest Stratfor bit on this:
"Summary

Iran's president is visiting Venezuela to cement closer political, energy and commercial ties with President Hugo Chavez's government. Closer ties would be mutually beneficial, as the leaders share a determination to keep oil prices as high as possible and are engaged in escalating conflicts with the U.S. administration. Chavez is working hard to develop a global network of strategic alliances to strengthen Venezuela in its confrontation with Washington. Tehran, meanwhile, would get the advantage of tighter alignment against a common foe."

...and no more details for free. Sorry, policy of Stratfor.

But here's an earlier bit more directly related to what I said:
"While the Venezuelan government's economists are not renowned for their competence, Chavez also might believe (accurately) that if Venezuela stops exporting oil to the United States, world oil prices would quickly soar above $60 a barrel. A sharp upward spike in oil prices would theoretically help Venezuela compensate at least partially for near-term oil export revenue declines. Given the fungible nature of global oil markets, Chavez also could think that within a year, Venezuela could find enough new clients for its oil exports to offset any potential loss in its long-term oil revenues that would result from a complete suspension of oil exports to the United States.

Chavez is eagerly courting new buyers of Venezuelan crude oil including China, India, South Korea and other countries. Moreover, Venezuela's Bolivarian government sees some of these countries -- like China and India -- as potential strategic allies in what Chavez perceives as an emerging global network of nations determined to challenge U.S. economic and political hegemony."

To all U.S. posters: THIS GUY IS OUR ENEMY!
To non-U.S. posters: same as above, which means most of your governments will rush to kiss Chavez's ass - like with Castro's.

[ThePrezMex]

NO/NO

Please read all of what I've written previously in other related threads. He's dangerous, he's indicated since he arrived to power that he intended to follow Castro's way.
I've repeated dozens of times that he has supported rogue nations and terrorist organizations. Do you remember before the Iraq war that he met with Saddam Hussein, Bashir el NixonNow and Khaddafi? Now he's meeting with Iran.
Not only that, he has recently been known to be upgrading and expanding in considerable size the Venezuelan army. He's designing and training kind of paramilitary groups, in the fashion of the ones in Cuba, to: 'defend Venezuela against an attack from the United States'.
He's delusional. I will repeat again: Unless he's taken out of power (in any way), in 2020 or more, we will still be talking about Chavez in power and he being a direct threat against the United States.
He's not as smart as Castro, take him out when you still can.
And: BRTD, please, start paying more attention to what he really says and do, and get rid of your naivete. It could be kind of cool to have some revolutionary rethoric among the extreme liberal crowd you move with, but we are not talking about romantic socialist dreams here. We are talking about a guy who is really destabilizing other nations and that is willing to give refuge to enemies of the American people.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If Kerry had won he'd probably be behaving much better. Bush pisses him off.