Since its financial crisis six years ago, Argentina has faded somewhat from the headlines. This is no doubt due in large part to the disproportionate space our media outlets now devote to Iraq and Iran, but also to the fact that other Latin American news stories--particularly Fidel Castro's surgery and the antics of Venezuela's clownish president Hugo Chávez--have dominated coverage of the area. Argentina is not, however, a negligent regional actor.

Paradoxically, in spite of Chavez’s claims to vigorously addressing his country’s need for better health and education, he is simply repeating many of the errors of his predecessors, this time on an incomparably larger financial scale.

In surveying Cuba’s international situation probably the most important new development has been the emergence of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez as Fidel Castro’s closest friend and ally. He is reporting giving the island roughly 90,000 barrels of oil a day (of which the island consumes a little more than half, selling the rest on the world spot market for hard cash). In exchange the Cubans have been seconding doctors, teachers, sports trainers and intelligence and military officials to Venezuela to help Chávez consolidate his rule.

The United States would . . . be well advised to take a low profile on [Hugo] Chávez and treat his regime as an unpleasant fever that will eventually pass, which it surely will when either oil prices decline or the Venezuelan oil industry begins to fully register the effects of politicization. Most likely, both will happen.

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