Obama May Use Chavez as Test for Talking With Foes

[Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.]

Obama May Use Chavez as Test for Talking With Foes

January 6th, 2009, by Indira A.R. Lakshmana - Bloomberg

In a mirrored office tower overlooking Caracas, a top Venezuelan official says his government is ready to accept Barack Obama’s offer to talk with U.S. adversaries -- if the president-elect scraps George W. Bush’s division of the world into friends and foes.

Such categories are “simplistic,” says Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s former envoy to Washington. “Why do nations have to be friends? What we have to do is sit down and discuss issues.”

Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.

Still, “Obama needs to be cautious” given Chavez’s inconsistent record on democracy, says Elsa Cardozo, an international-relations scholar at the Metropolitan University of Caracas. The 54-year-old former lieutenant colonel has allowed open elections and an opposition press while consolidating power over the government and selectively persecuting political rivals.
“Expect an indirect and gradual approach” that might serve as a template for normalizing relations with other countries run by long-serving charismatic leaders who’ve consolidated power, she says.

Mutual Interest

Some Obama advisers privately suggest the president-elect might reach out to Chavez, proposing cooperation on a few issues of mutual interest -- drug enforcement, energy, poverty -- while asking Brazil and other neighbors to encourage the Venezuelan leader to negotiate in good faith in the interest of regional harmony.

(click here to view entire article)