COSTLY OIL CRISIS - Paying for errors in Venezuela - Prospects for solutions seem bleak

www.toledoblade.com By FRIDA GHITIS SPECIAL TO THE BLADE

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is straining to find the right tone in its approach to the growing crisis in Venezuela. One day spokesman Ari Fleischer says the United States would like to see new presidential elections. The next day, after someone notes a new election might be unconstitutional, he says it’s really a referendum the White House supports.

Whatever it is, Mr. Fleischer emphasizes that it ought to happen democratically, within "the confines of the constitution of Venezuela."

The reality, however, is that at a time when Washington can least afford to see oil production disrupted, few people in Latin America believe the U.S. government’s claim to stand for democratic rule. Washington’s influence in Venezuela’s crisis has been deeply eroded by its own actions.

During normal times, the United States imports 14 percent of its oil from the South American country. But these are not normal times. The Venezuelan oil industry is practically paralyzed by a nationwide strike by opponents of President Hugo Chavez. At the same time, the United States is poised for a possible war in Iraq, which could disrupt oil supplies in the Persian Gulf. From Washington’s perspective, the timing of the troubles in Caracas could hardly be any worse.

If the timing is poor today, the prospects for the coming weeks look even grimmer. Venezuelans are passionately divided. Millions of Mr. Chavez’s opponents want him out of office, and millions of his supporters - many of them armed - say they will do what it takes to keep him in power. The ingredients for a disastrous civil war are all in place.

The United States would like to diffuse the situation, but it is reaping what it sowed last April, when it spectacularly mishandled the Venezuelan crisis. It proclaimed support for the overthrow of the highly controversial, but nonetheless democratically elected Mr. Chavez.

Like many in Washington, Latin American leaders would like to see the Chavez era end. But the region has struggled over the last two decades to create and strengthen democracy. That is why when a bungled coup removed the former colonel from power for 48 hours, Latin American governments quickly spoke out against what was a flagrant violation of democratic principles. Washington, however, rushed to celebrate, blaming Mr. Chavez for his own fate and accepting at face value the coup plotters’ false assertion that the president had resigned.

Many accused Washington of involvement with the coup. Administration officials offered conflicting accounts of meetings with the leaders of the anti-Chavez movement. Some said U.S. authorities had offered tacit support for the forceful removal of the president; others maintained that the United States had urged the opposition to work through constitutional means.

The United States would be overjoyed if Mr. Chavez left office. The former paratrooper has been a burr under Washington’s saddle since he took office four years ago. The nation that was once a reliable and friendly supplier of oil has become a source of constant worry since he took office. His inflammatory leftist rhetoric has been consistently anti-American. When the United States attacked Afghanistan, he accused America of committing a crime as great as that of Sept. 11.

He has successfully pushed for OPEC to control production and thus push oil prices higher. When he took office oil was selling for less than $10 a barrel, less than one-third today’s price.

To rally OPEC unity he has undertaken diplomatic tours that to Washington eyes look like the work of the travel agent from Hell. He has visited Muammar Kaddafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, the Ayatollah Ali Khameini in Tehran, and Fidel Castro, his close friend, in Havana.

It is not only Washington that dislikes Mr. Chavez. His sympathy for Colombia’s leftist guerrillas has caused friction with the neighboring country, and his friendship with Castro has worried many in the hemisphere. But nowhere is the displeasure more intense than among Mr. Chavez’s own people.

Mr. Chavez, who once tried to take power through a coup, has enraged his countrymen with inflammatory and divisive populist rhetoric and with political moves that concentrate power in his own hands. During his tenure the poverty that already affected a majority of Venezuelans has become even more pervasive. But many of the poor see him as one of them and still revere him, blaming the rich and powerful for the country’s problems, as Mr. Chavez does.

Ironically, events in Venezuela may have more power to influence Washington’s actions than vice-versa. If the anti-Chavez strike that has crippled Venezuela’s oil production does not end, Washington is going to find it more challenging to launch a war in Iraq.

While Washington was focusing all its energy and attention on the Middle East, its top oil supplier in its own hemisphere was spinning out of control. But the United States cannot present itself as an honest broker to help resolve the crisis. Its words are now seen with absolute mistrust by Mr. Chavez and his supporters.

Frida Ghitis is the author of The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the age of Live Television. She writes about world affairs.