If you understand that the rules of economics are principles that describe how the world functions, it becomes clear that OPEC has never had the power that people ascribed to it, and simply isn't the important force in the world its members may wish to believe. You could appoint yourself Supervisor of the Surf, and it would be a great gig, but the surf rolls in and out with or without you. Of course.
But what does it mean to such a make-believe oil-producers group when the largest producers don't come to the meetings? Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and now Iraq, all enormous producers who will not be in attendance at OPEC bowling league events or canasta parties. What is an aspiring Doctor Evil like Chavez to do?
You could start a Doctor Evil fan club, and sure enough that is exactly what Chavez is doing. He is the guy who flew half way across the world to shake hands with Saddam before the fall, who sought out Taliban and Al Qaeda representatives in order to donate money to Bin Ladin after 9/11, who openly supports FARC guerrillas, who has visited with Khadafi, who funds radical military officers all over latin america... The list goes on and on. And who is folding Cuban military personnel into his own military, to assure a second chain of command to watch the first, I suppose, and to do work that his own troops won't do.
At some point it becomes obvious that Chavez is insane. I don't have any doubt that he is bonkers. But that doesn't make him any less dangerous, in fact it is precisely his lack of a grip on reality that may make him very dangerous indeed. He dreams of building a force in the Americas capable of forcing the US out. To do this, he is attracting and giving voice to the most irrational elements in latin america and the world for that matter. Someone who wants to hook up with Al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence, while building a military alliance with Cuba and the FARC is almost prima facia irrational, begging to be added to our Al Qaeda hit list, begging for a confrontation with the US that would leave Venezuelan blood on US hands.
We can't afford to give him his wish, but we had better have some chess players at over at the Pentagon who know what to do. History never really repeats itself, but its cycles can lend a greater understanding on events of the past. I think people are starting to understand Pinochet much better now.