SEN. CHAFEE: I'd like to follow up on some of Senator Biden's comments about there seems to be a hypocritical approach to our foreign policy in some ways, in particular how we deal with some of those democracies such as Russia -- Senator Biden said uneven or undemocratic -- or some of the -- Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, even Musharraf, President Musharraf, and then, on the other hand, have a completely different view of, say, Iran. As Senator Biden was saying, it seems the way we magnify our differences on one hand, and then, on the other hand, we magnify our similarities. And in particular, after having just come back from South America and meeting with President Chavez, here he has been drawn before his people, high, high turnout, just had a referendum. And as one of the people from our embassy said, he cleaned their clocks and kicked their butts. And it seems to me to say derogatory things about him may be disrespectful to him, but also to the Venezuelan people. How do you react to that?
MS. RICE: Well, I have nothing but good things to say about the Venezuelan people. They are a remarkable people. And if you notice, Senator Chafee, I was not making derogatory comments, I was simply recognizing that there are unhelpful and unconstructive trends going on in Venezuelan policies. This is not -- this is not personal. [...]
SEN. CHAFEE: You and Senator Boxer were having a little bit of a debate over credibility. And to me it seems as though trust is built with consistency. Is it possible for you to say something positive about the Chavez administration?
MS. RICE: It's pretty hard, Senator, to find something positive. Let me say this --
SEN. CHAFEE: I don't understand that, after -- after --
MS. RICE: Let me say this -- let me say this --
SEN. CHAFEE: -- Tajikistan, Pakistan, Russia. It seems as though, as I say, magnifying our differences to some countries, and magnifying our similarities with other. And as I said, I think trust is built with consistency. I don't see consistency in some of your comments.
MS. RICE: Well, the state of behavior in the Western Hemisphere, the state of affairs in the Western Hemisphere is such that we've had democratic revolutions in all of these places and we don't want to see them go back. We have some places where the democratic revolution is still to take place, and we just have to understand that there are differences in that regard.
But I have said we hope that the government of Venezuela will continue to recognize what has been a mutually beneficial relationship on energy, and that we can continue to pursue that. We certainly hope that we can continue to pursue counter-drug activities in the Andean region, and Venezuela participates in that. But I have to say that for the most part, the activities of the Venezuelan government in the last couple of years have been pretty unconstructive.
SEN. CHAFEE: Well, thanks very much. I'll go back to what I said earlier; it seems disrespectful to the Venezuelan people. They have spoken.
Oy. You really have to hear the plaintive tone in his voice to get the full effect. I don't see why Chafee is so bent on apologizing for Chavez, although his point about consistency is an important one. Chavez is a terrible leader who is leading his people astray, and Rice is correct to point that out, though it's by no means clear that the Bush administration knows how to steer Chavez in a more constructive direction. One wonders if the demonization of Chavez actually serves to boost his anti-American credentials and allow him to punch above his weight in the region.
Now, it just so happens that I'm reading Morton Halperin et al's new CFR-sponsored book, The Democracy Advantage. The authors dispute Fareed Zakaria's conception of "illiberal democracy" as "an oxymoron that only muddies the waters," but it seems to me to be an apt enough label in this case. Here's what they say about Venezuela, which provides as good a summary of the situation as any:
The economy has been steadily contracting there since 1980, with per capita incomes shrinking from $4,400 to $3,300. Railing against the sharp income disparities within Venezuelan society, populist Hugo Chavez, a former junior army officer who had led a failed coup attempt in 1992, was elected 1999, promising to improve the lives of the country's poor. Chavez has undertaken high-profile programs to address poverty such as Plan Bolivar. This mobilized military personnel to construct various infrastructure projects including highways, schools, and hospitals as well as to provide various social services. Conditions have only seemed to worsen, however.
Concurrently, Chavez took actions that weakened Venezuela's long-established democratic institutions, including amending the constitution so as to centralize power in the presidency, stacking the courts with his allies, politicizing Venezuela's armed forces, removing civilian checks on the military, attacking the credibility of the country's political institutions, and bypassing the legislature through referendums. [yes, yes, he sort of sounds like Bush, except for that last part. But the Putinization of Venezuela is far, far worse. -p] Despite the controversy created by such actions, Chavez maintains widespread support among the 30 percent of the population living under the poverty line, keeping him in power. Thumbing his nose at his political opponents who have not been able to displace him at the polls, he boasts of his revolutionary ideology and intention to stay in power until 2021.
A short-lived coup against Chavez in April 2002 [did the U.S. play a role? -p] vividly demonstrated the strains between the social classes in Venezuelan society. While many from the middle and upper echelons of society and even important elements of organized labor backed it, the poor rose up in Chavez's defense. Clashes resulted in the deaths of at least 12 people. This resistance, the ineptitude of the coup leaders, the uneasiness of the general population with the autocratic nature of the coup plotters, and widespread condemnation of the international community resulted in a sudden evaporation of support for the coup. Chavez was returned to power within two days. A subsequent three-month strike in late 2002 and early 2003 again brought the country to a standstill and exposed the depths of Venezuela's division. To their credit, both the government and the strikers sought to curb violence. However, once the strike was broken, Chavez had a number of the strike leaders, led by executives from the state oil company, arrested. In 2004, a referendum to recall Chavez failed--perpetuating Venezuela's political impasse.
All of this turmoil hurt the economy. Venezuela experienced a contraction in real GDP per capita of 27 percent between 1998 and 2003. The social, political, and economic cleavages of Venezuelan society appear destined to pull the country into still deeper malaise. It thus represents the worst of both scenarios--deteriorating economic perforamance and hardening dictatorial rule. It is the prospect of such a democratic reversal that many fear will engulf the entire region.
That sounds like a textbook illiberal democracy to me, though the authors go on to explain why Venezuela is an outlier of sorts. But let's not quibble over labels. In short, Chavez is a bad dude and bad for his country, but the prospects for alternative leadership are dim as long as he's the people's choice. Maybe the learned Randy Paul will address this problem when he gets back from partying in Brazil, where erstwhile radical socialist Lula has actually turned out to be a pretty decent president.
Incidentally, today we learn that Chafee is on the ropes, which is good because we might as well pick up a nominal as well as de facto Democrat for that seat.
As for the Halperin book, so far it's vastly superior to the Sharansky book, The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which is a poorly-written moral and anecdotal rather than factual argument replete with bland platitudes, and one that ultimately fails to acknowledge key tradeoffs. It's basically the free lunch/magic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that we all talked about in the thread below. The idea is that if only the Palestinians have democratic institutions, they'll give up all of these crazy ideas about getting their land back and so forth. But as we've seen so far, the democratically-elected Mahmoud Abbas faces many of the same constraints that confronted his less-well-meaning predecessor. We shall see, but I'm not optimistic.
In any case, there does need to be more of a focus on Latin America, as even Rice acknowledged, as it appears to be backsliding. This is no surprise given Bush's broken promises in the region due to his focus on terrorism and his entrustment of Latin America policy to a bunch of Reagan-era retreads. Let's hope we can apply a little more Halperin, a little less Sharansky, and no Chafee-esque apologism. In the meantime, let's be sure, as Richard Lugar strongly suggested, that we have a backup plan in case Chavez and Khamenei try some nonsense with oil supplies. It wouldn't be the first time those two nations, so instrumental in forming OPEC, came together to cause us grief. As Venezuela spirals further downward, Chavez may be looking for cash. Stay tuned.
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