Americans are suffering a new psychological disorder:
news-induced political numbness. It’s not the return of Jimmy
Carter’s “malaise.” Despite the steady stream of Congressional
absurdities and conservatives’ growing impatience with the
president, we’re doing pretty well for a nation at war. But the
incessant 24/7 television-newspaper-Internet barrage has caused
people to tune the world out instead of reserving energy to think
about the events that must be the focus of our attention. All of
us, especially the White House, desperately want a break to rest
and recuperate. But that’s not an option. Times are tough, and we
just have to keep going.
Our economy is booming, but each of us — and every business —
is suffering from the high cost of gasoline. We’re suffering the
results the enviro-whackos have imposed, without a new oil refinery
or nuclear power plant in decades, without offshore drilling, and
without opening the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve to oil
exploration. But offshore drilling there will be, because Cuba has
agreed to Chinese oil and gas drilling in the Florida Strait. Just
about fifty miles off Key West, China will be doing what American
companies can’t. It’s all part of a larger plan by the self-styled
Simon Bolivar of the 21st century, Hugo Chavez. If we don’t start
interfering with Hugo Chavez’s plans, we might as well sell our
cars and buy bicycles.
None of the worst in the Western Hemisphere — from Vicente Fox
to Nicaragua’s Danny Ortega now starring in Nicaragua’s Sandinista
Revival — seem bad enough to be worthy of a disparaging word or
two from the White House. Chavez is emboldened by the lack of
response. Chavez recently visited Iran to stand with the mullahs
and warn that oil shipments — we get about 18 percent of our oil
from Venezuela — would be interrupted if America hits the Iranian
nuclear facilities. He’s done everything he can think of to provoke
us, from replacing the Soviet Union as Castro’s bankroller to
allying himself with China. He’s working hard to create a
“Bolivarian axis” of anti-American governments in Central and South
America, and China is the immediate beneficiary.
A few weeks ago, Chavez met with his hero, Castro, and the newly
elected Evo Morales of Bolivia to talk about how they can combine
their influence to America’s disadvantage. Chavez, for all his
crude bluster, is neither ignorant nor lacking in savvy. He knows
that China is the number two oil importer in the world, and that
the Hu Jintao government is pressing every advantage it can find to
tie up oil supplies around the world. And, he knows, China
periodically tests American resolve. The last time China engaged in
such a test, an American Navy EP-3 Orion was forced down on Hainan
Island and the crew held hostage for a week to China’s demand for
an apology from President Bush. With Chavez’s and Castro’s help,
China is testing Mr. Bush again.
Our offshore oil drilling is stuck somewhere in the late 1960s.
Since then nary a new well has been drilled, and not a new refinery
built. Under contract with Castro, the Chinese government will be
drilling for oil and gas in the Florida Straits as well as
northwest of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico.
Cuba has the right to sell oil drilling rights in its waters and
China has the right to buy them just as much as it has the right to
agree with India on oil exploration and to build refineries in
Indonesia or, for that matter, in Venezuela. But here we have to
draw a line, and make clear to both China and Chavez that the line
cannot be crossed.
The Saudis made oil a weapon in their 1973 oil embargo. Chavez
is fond of threatening us with cutting off oil shipments suddenly.
To do so now would do what the Saudis tried to do: to so damage our
economy that we would surrender our allies or our interests. China
or Iran could easily tie a Venezuelan decision to ship the oil
meant for America to China with military or terrorist action
elsewhere. Chavez and his allies in Iran and China should be made
to understand that if oil is used as a weapon, the response we make
will be with every other weapon — military or economic — we
choose in response to such an attack.
Chavez’s aggressive anti-Americanism and growing military power
is losing him many likely allies. Peru, Mexico and others in the
area are very nervous about his ambitions, and that we can use to
advantage. Central and South America aren’t our protectorates, but
we can — and should — increase our trade and military assistance
to Venezuela’s neighbors. Chavez should be told in plain terms
that, after Castro, Cuba will be made free one way or the other and
that any Venezuelan interference would be met with force.
The second answer to Chavez’s ambitions has to be directed to
his newfound allies in Iran and China. They must be made to
understand that the Monroe Doctrine is still in effect, and we have
a new derivation of the action it entitles us to. Call it the
Commercial Corollary.
Those who engage in trade with Venezuela should be free to do so
only as long as they limit their activities to commercial trade.
Those who — such as China — often insert military personnel in
commercial activities will not be permitted to do so in Venezuela
or anywhere else in the hemisphere. We should be looking closely at
China’s operations in the Panama Canal Zone.
Castro has, for decades, welcomed terrorists of many stripes
into Cuba. The Irish Republican Army, at the height of its
terrorist activities, had a base in Havana that helped arm and
train terrorists throughout the northern half of South America.
Should terrorist bases arise in Venezuela, or if Iran or China
choose to use it as a base of operations overtly or covertly, we
will forcibly end their presence there.
Mr. Chavez should take less comfort from the oil weapon he
believes protects him from American response. Should he choose
suddenly to cut off the oil he supplies to us, our economy would
suffer tremendous damage. His provocations of America have, so far,
not been responded to in kind. That will not always be the
case.
TAS contributing editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are
Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004) and, with Edward
Timperlake, Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United
States (Regnery, May 2006 — click here to obtain a free chapter).
