My latest at The American…

A WikiLeaks cable shows the U.S. embassy knew of an alleged plot to kidnap or kill Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli and did little to investigate.

Suppose Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez ordered the murder of the president of a U.S. ally. That would surely cause U.S. diplomats to reconsider the threat he poses to our security and interests, right?

Wrong.

According to a WikiLeaks cable released by the paper Panama America, the U.S. embassy was made aware of an alleged plot to kidnap or kill Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli and did little, if anything, to investigate.

            Suppose Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez ordered the murder of the president of a U.S. ally.  That would surely cause U.S. diplomats to reconsider the threat he poses to our security and interests, right?  Wrong.  According to a Wikileaks cable released this weekend by the paper, Panama America  in mid-January 2010, the U.S. Embassy was made aware of an alleged plot to kidnap or kill Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli and did little if anything to investigate.

            That “secret” embassy cable – sent a full three weeks after the incident (February 9) – informed Washington that the plot was a “hoax.”  What it reveals, unintentionally, is that the Embassy failed to conduct any serious inquiry into the incident, secure in the knowledge that no one in Washington would care about a Chávez plot to kill the president of a friendly nation, whose murder would have sowed chaos in the country that hosts the strategic Panama Canal and the region as a whole. 

President Obama’s trip to South America has showcased promising partnerships in Brazil and elsewhere. His visit, however, should also focus attention in the region and within his administration on the fact that Iran and Venezuela are conspiring to sow Tehran’s brand of proxy terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.

On Aug. 22, 2010, at Iran’s suggestion, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hosted senior leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in a secret summit at military intelligence headquarters at the Fuerte Tiuna compound in southern Caracas. Among those present were Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, who is on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists; Hamas’s “supreme leader,” Khaled Meshal; and Hezbollah’s “chief of operations,” whose identity is a closely guarded secret.

“Eighty percent of success is showing up,” said Woody Allen. President Obama’s upcoming trip to Latin America, the first of his life, could jumpstart a policy that has left observers here and in the region wondering where he’s been.

After pledging a policy of dialogue and partnership, our friends are still waiting for either – as the administration has failed to offer any novel initiative to advance our common interests. Our foes are watching, too. A passive policy toward Venezuela has left strongman Hugo Chávez pressing forward on an audacious anti-U.S. agenda, including offering Iran and narcotraffickers a safe haven for their dangerous criminal activities.

When the president was first elected, nations in the region welcomed the fresh approach favored by Obama – that Washington should forge a policy with the region, not for the region. He would not impose an agenda but shape a common vision with our neighbors.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón will meet with President Obama today in Washington at a time of tension between the two governments and between the two countries. President Calderón has expressed his frustration with our relations in recent days, using unusually harsh criticism of our ambassador and of our sluggish anti-drug support. To be sure, this is a time for frank discussion—not just between two leaders, but between two societies. And that dialogue should start with a simple recognition that we are both indispensable allies in a war that threatens both of us.

Commentators and journalists on U.S. television frequently refer to violence “spilling over from Mexico,” as if sealing the border would fix the problem, along with the illegal immigration. However, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, the biggest organized threat in this country today is the drug trafficking organizations based in Mexico, which use U.S. gangs to market illegal drugs and terrorize anyone who gets in the way of their deadly trade. The fact is, Mexico is fighting the other end of the same beast that threatens the health and security of every American.

The costs on both sides of the border are staggering. The law enforcement offensive launched by Calderón has touched off violent turf wars that have claimed 30,000 lives in the last several years; the vast majority of the dead were complicit in the drug trade, but the lives of innocent Mexicans, police personnel, and soldiers have been lost, too. And, let’s not forget that 20,000 Americans die every year due to the abuse of illicit drugs.

Our president has the unique capability to rally international public opinion, and there is no better time for him to challenge the world to join us in insisting on deep, broad, and irreversible reforms in Cuba.

People in a big city like Washington, D.C., know about something called “mugger money.” That’s the $20 bill you slip into your front pocket while you stash the bulk of your cash elsewhere. To avoid irritating a mugger by claiming you have no money, you offer up the $20 and hope he goes away. The Obama administration’s decision last Friday to let Americans send more cash to Cuba is like slipping mugger money to a few million Cubans. But in Cuba, the mugger never goes away.

Some might regard the Obama administration’s plans to allow U.S. universities and churches to expand study tours as rather unremarkable. And that’s the other problem. At a time when this great country should adopt bold and innovative initiatives to help the Cuban people liberate and govern themselves, the administration reinstated travel loopholes that were abused until they were discredited and discarded years ago.

A year after the devastating 2010 earthquake, Haitians are trying to clear away the rubble of incompetent, corrupt, and failed political leadership by electing a new president.  Unfortunately, incumbent President René Préval – abetted by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez and the unprincipled head of the Organization of American States (OAS) – is trying to deny the Haitian people a president of their own choosing.  The dramatic return of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier to Port au Prince on Sunday has raised the stakes for U.S. diplomats and others, who must act boldly to salvage the democratic process so Haitians can look to their future.

Sources in the American government know that Préval recently sought $25 million from Chávez to bankroll the runoff campaign of his handpicked successor, Jude Célestin.  U.S. officials also know that OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza ordered his staff to suppress new findings by a team of electoral experts that reveals that Célestin is not even eligible to advance to the second round, having finished third behind Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly in last November’s first-round balloting.

Posted at AEI.com, looking forward to the role a new Congress can play on Latin America….

No. 1, January 2011

After years of passivity and improvisation, US policy in Latin America is dysfunctional. It must be retooled to confront grave and growing security challenges, as well as to cultivate promising economic opportunities in the region. Vigorous bipartisan oversight by the newly elected Congress will encourage the Obama administration to develop a more sensible policy toward this key region that addresses Mexico's antidrug campaign, Hugo Chávez's hostile regime, free trade with Colombia, and relations with Brazil and Cuba.

               Bernard Álvarez, the mouthpiece for Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, is feeling the heat.  His defensive piece published today in ForeignPolicy.com complains about new Congressional scrutiny of the criminal regime he represents in Washington.  In an unusual move for a foreign diplomat, he attacks viciously the new Republican leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, particularly Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Connie Mack (both R-FL), who are respected as reasonable people and tireless defenders of U.S. interests and values. 

Posted on The American….

Ecuador's anti-American president has offered 'residency' to WikiLeaks's founder. If anyone still wonders whether the WikiLeaks assault concerns freedom of expression or hostility toward the United States, here is fresh evidence.

If anyone still wonders whether the WikiLeaks assault concerns freedom of expression or hostility toward the United States, fresh evidence appears in, of all places, Quito, Ecuador. The anti-American regime of President Rafael Correa offered “residency” to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Posted on AEI’s The American….

One of the world's top drug kingpins may soon be telling U.S. prosecutors everything he knows about Venezuelan officials who have abetted his cocaine smuggling operations.

Venezuela’s democratic opposition leaders say that they have scored a stunning victory in yesterday’s national assembly elections, with their slate of candidates winning a slight majority of the popular votes cast. Because Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez rigged the rules, the opposition’s majority vote would translate into only about 64 of the 165 assembly seats. But that would leave Chavez with no more than 101 seats—less the super-majority he needs to force through major reforms.

Now comes the crucial test for the opposition, as they mobilize to demand an honest count and “fair” apportionment of the assembly.

Last night’s results left the bombastic Chavez speechless. He skipped his traditional post-election rally from the presidential palace’s “Balcony of the People” because he literally had nothing to say. His handlers gave him draft remarks for four possible scenarios, but none of them anticipated the major defeat in which Chavez failed to win the two-thirds majority.

Posted at The American....
 
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know why Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would want a nuclear bomb. Although most observers would dismiss the notion of Chavez building such a weapon, a man who used to help build them for the United States didn’t think the idea was so crazy.
Last Friday, the FBI revealed the arrest and indictment of two U.S. citizens accused of plotting to help Venezuela obtain a nuclear bomb. Accused nuclear scientist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, who was convinced that he was talking to a representative of the Chavez regime (rather than an FBI undercover agent), offers the following rationale for such a dangerous program:
 
 

A deterrence against the U.S. based on conventional weapons is highly inadequate … Venezuela cannot develop deterrence against a U.S. invasion using conventional weapons … The only option for Venezuela is to develop nuclear deterrence … Venezuela would show the world that [it] is a mature nuclear power able to deter a superpower … What we do when we are in Venezuela … is our business, not that of the U.S. government.
 

Chavez could not have said it better himself.
 
The U.S. federal indictment continues:
 
 

From the American Enterprise Institute's The American...

Public opinion polls leading up to September 26 elections in Venezuela show that leftist President Hugo Chávez may have to resort to blatant fraud in order to deny the democratic opposition substantial gains in the national assembly. Presidential palace insiders are so panicked by recent polls that they have muzzled Chávez, lest his incendiary rhetoric energize the growing opposition vote. His closest advisors are scrambling to be able to blame their bombastic leader for bad news on election day. The very public death Tuesday of hunger striker Franklin Brito, a 49-year-old farmer protesting the regime's expropriation of his family's land, will do even more to rally the opposition and put Chávez on the defensive.

Posted at the Omaha World-Herald….

It is hard to imagine that a swaggering Latin strongman has more strategic vision than U.S. diplomats, but the facts suggest that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez has managed to build a powerful alliance of U.S. rivals and rogues right under our noses.

The U.S. strategy toward the irascible Chávez — beginning in the last several years of the Bush administration and continuing today — has been to ignore his rhetoric and not get in the way of his self-destruction. While Washington sleeps, Chávez is consolidating broad and deep alliances with China, Cuba, Iran and Russia that threaten our long-term economic interests and security.

My latest Latin American Outlook for the American Enterprise Institute, in which I argue that its time Washington wakes up to the profound challenge posed by the strategic alliance between Hugo Chávez and China….

Under the cloak of Washington's indifference, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez is making steady progress in cementing strategic relations with China, which is eager to eclipse U.S. presence in a key, mineral-rich South American economy. Russia is a source of weapons and foreign policy clout, Iran is abetting Chávez's shadowy nuclear program, and Cuba is managing a system of internal control and repression in Venezuela. Together with China's capital, in the form of loans and investments, this cadre of hostile powers has selfish motives and ruthless methods for keeping Chávez in power. China has funneled money and expertise into Venezuela's oil industry and taken an authoritative role in improving the country's manufacturing sector and finances. With so much to gain in trade and oil, China will strive to keep Chávez in power. The United States can no longer afford to practice wishful thinking but must recognize the threat growing in Venezuela.

My op-ed in the Miami Herald saying we should rethink our “mutually beneficial” relationship with Hugo Chavez….

Deflecting fresh evidence that his regime is hosting nearly 40 Colombian guerrilla training camps, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez warned that in case of a yanqui invasion he would not send ``another drop of oil to the United States.'' That sent a State Department spokesman to reassure Chávez that ``we want our mutually beneficial energy relationship with Venezuela to continue.''

Here are a few clues about what kind of relationship Chávez wants with us. He is waging an illegal proxy war against our ally Colombia, helping Iran evade international sanctions and continue its push for nuclear weapons, sending weapons to Middle Eastern radicals, fueling a costly regional arms race and abetting drug traffickers who operate in his country with impunity.

Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez’s record of providing money, arms, political support, and, yes, safe haven to groups waging a murderous war against a sovereign state openly violates international law.

The proxy war being waged by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez against neighboring Colombia was denounced formally at the Organization of American States (OAS) this week, prompting Chávez to break diplomatic relations with Bogotá. By challenging the OAS to investigate the presence of narco-guerrilla camps in Venezuela, outgoing Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has assured that Chávez’s support for terrorism can no longer be ignored by the international community.

My latest commentary in the Miami Herald on Secretary Clinton’s meeting this week with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, where I argue that some serious diplomacy is in order:  i.e., Correa needs to hear some straight talk about his authoritarian style.  There’s nothing wrong with trying to peel him away from the Chavez camp, as long as we don’t sacrifice our interests or values….

Latin America will pop up on the U.S. foreign-policy radar screen this week as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends a meeting of her regional counterparts in Peru and then visits Ecuador and Colombia.

My latest in the AEI magazine, The American, where I make the case that Hugo Chavez's international relationships should earn Venezuela a spot on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror....

This month a dozen U.S. senators fired the opening salvo in what promises to be an aggressive oversight campaign to get to the bottom of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez’s support for terrorism. A May 25 letter challenges Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to explain what the administration knows about Venezuela’s support for a sprawling network of terrorist states and groups, including Iran, Hezbollah, Colombian “narcoterrorists,” Cuba, and Syria.

Rallied by John Ensign (R-Nevada) and George LeMieux (R-Florida), the senators are asking that Secretary Clinton explain what the administration knows about alleged arms shipments, high-level contacts, and financial dealings linking Venezuela to a rogue’s gallery of, well, rogues. The detailed letter signals that the senators already know more than the administration has been willing or able to substantiate about dictator Chávez’s collaboration with anti-American terror groups and hostile regimes.