"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."

 

U.S. President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address January 2002

 

There has been no indifference; of that we can be certain. Whether the attention delivered has yielded net positives or not is subject to continued debate. This much can not be debated: the five years since George Bush uttered the term ‘axis of evil’ are five years that have reshaped the world. The War in Iraq, if it can still be called what the world knows as war, rages on in its fourth year. Diplomatic relations between the United States, Iran and North Korea are fractured at best; arguably the same is true of relations with the United Nations.

 

Enter Venezuela.

 

Following the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, and under the shadow of Fidel Castro’s declining health, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has stepped into the breach as an enemy to U.S. hegemony. Wide reporting covered the diplomatic visit between North Korea and Venezuela in September 2006; that visit yielded steps towards embassy building in each nation. Chavez’ appearance at the United Nations in the fall, on the same day as President Bush, was marked by fanatic hostility. As Venezuela makes enmity for the U.S. government (if not its dollars) official state policy, its increasing reach to those nations who share their animosity is alarming. Alarming, but not quite on par with the original Axis of Evil states even as Venezuela grow closer to two of them.

 

For all of its likely talk to North Korean diplomats about mutual interest, Venezuela very publicly joined the chorus of negative response to Pyongyang’s nuclear tests. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro stated at the time that, “As a matter of principle, Venezuela is against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and condemns these kinds of tests due to the immense damage they cause to the planet.” Through his own words and the words of his secondaries, Hugo Chavez is playing an interesting game of global chess.

 

In a country still reeling with economic difficulties, Chavez is playing both populist and salesman for a wealth of oil under his nation’s soil. Fiery rhetoric rallies many in Venezuela and among a growing anti-U.S. global population; savvy business has built a solid relationship in the U.S. with none other than the Kennedy family. In defense of that relationship, Joe Kennedy of the Citizens Energy Corporation wrote in a January 2007 editorial that:

 

Venezuela supplied the U.S. with over 558 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products last year, much of it bought and marketed by major oil companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP, Shell, and Valero. They all share one thing in common: they made huge amounts of money, not because they did anything better, but because the cost of oil simply went up. Only CITGO responded to the plea I made to every oil company and member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to help the poor cope in their attempts to stay warm.

 

That relationship allows Chavez to cross-apply his populist support abroad to a sizable chunk of Americans. Americans know that Chavez is no friend to his northern neighbor, but so far he hasn’t been willing to be an enemy to himself. The national interest of Venezuela is so heavily tied to its economic needs that Chavez has yet to overly embrace those who stand firmly as enemies of the West. That doesn’t mean toes are not in the water. Recent developments have seen military cooperation possibilities arise between Iran and Venezuela (specifically the widely reported possibility of Iran-Venezuela cooperation in the construction of unmanned aerial vehicles). Of all the countries that originally comprised the ‘axis,’ Iran remains the most unpredictable. Their reaching out to Venezuela, and recently to insurgents in Iraq, is small compared to the larger Iranian nuclear issues but the ancillary items of concern can not be ignored.