The news media, especially Foxnews, is all a twitter about what Hugo Chavez is doing in the Bronx this morning. He is supposedly going to give away cheap oil and gas contracts, so the poor in this country won’t freeze this winter.
Foxnews all morning long is criticizing both Chavez and Mamoud Ahmadinejad for their anti-US fervor in front of the UN the other day. Now, Foxnews want us to boycott CITGO gas because Chavez owns it, and they kept flashing a banner on the screen that read “How dare Chavez criticize the US at the UN”. Their are several differences between Chavez and Ahmadinejad, but I’ll just concentrate on one. Chavez is harmless, Ahmadinejad is not.
For all his bluster, Hugo Chavez sways very little power. Yeah, he poking a sharp stick in Bush’s eye, and I even welcome that. George Bush deserves every sharp stick in the eye he can get. His rhetoric against the US can be at times, over the top, but as a world player, he’s not even in the same ballpark as Ahmadinejad.
Mamoud Ahmadinejad is bascially controlling the Middle East. His little proxy way with Israel caused the Jewish state lots of problems. He wants the bomb, and everybody knows it. He is meddling in the affairs of Iraq, and the head of Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki, recently paid a visit to Ahmadinejad for face to face talks. His inflammitory statements against Israel, and denying that the holocaust never happened, are certainly not helping matters any. In short, Ahmadinejad is a dangerous man. If he gets the bomb, then the danger increases ten-fold, not because he might use it, he probably won’t, but nuclear technology in the hands of rougue terrorist states, backed by Iran is not something that can happen.
Now, I’m not saying bomb Iran. that would be fool hearty, and quite possibly could make matters a whole lot worse. But what I am saying is that either indirect talks with Iran, or undermining his power base, I think would go a long way to disarming Iran. I think France, Russia and China could be of significant help here. If they pressure Iran, plus backchannel talks, and possibly sanctions that hurt Ahmadinejad, but not his people is possible. A nuclear Iran is just not acceptable.
That’s the big difference between Chavez and Ahmadinejad. Chavez is like a mosquito bite, you notice it, but it’s not a problem. Mamoud Ahmadinejad is like a growing cancer, eventually, it might kill you.
