>It seems to me that there's a weaker side of Uribe who would want to
>get along with the rest of Latin America. But the incentives may not
>be sufficiently large for him to shift.
With the U.S. sending $1 billion a year in military aid, I'd say there's not much incentive to change anything. Plus, Colombia's economy has been growing pretty well--around or over 5% for most of the 00s--and is actually, unlike Venezuela's, becoming less dependent on oil exports.
>It's also about, you know, material interest$. The Colombian economy
>is highly dependent on trade with Venezuela.
The countries do trade quite a bit with each other, and while Colombia exports more than it imports, I don't think it's by enough to say that it is "highly dependent" on Venezuela.
>Whenever he has a
>chance, Chavez dangles that opportunity cost in Uribe's face. He
>evokes the prospect$ of serious international economic cooperation in
>South America and the Caribbean. Chavez is really good at making
>these descriptions of future prosperity and regional independence
>vivid and tangible. And the picture Chavez is painting is
>increasingly looking as a serious counterweight to whatever Washington
>may offer Colombia now.
I don't see how, but you may be right. I think it's more interesting to wonder what Chavez is trying to accomplish with the "tensions" this week, because really, Uribe's pretty secure. Even though his government only controls about half the country, he's in a much stronger position than either Chavez or Correa. The people of Colombia are pretty docile, caught as they are between the terrorist machinations of the goverment, narcotraffickers, paramilitaries, and FARC.
To me, Chavez's reaction last weekend was clearly over the top: Colombia kills some rebels in Ecuador and he sends 10,000 troops to his border with Colombia, not to mention withdraws his diplomats and calls Uribe a liar, among other things? Was there any danger at all that Colombia was going to try the same thing in Venezuela? Not a chance. But Chavez made his militarist point, and he got to, or tried to, divert Venezuelans' attentions away from the fact that "his" revolution is in trouble--the failed referendum by massive abstention, the increasingly restive labor unions, the bureacratic infighting, and the food problems all point to the fact that he's losing control, that he's having trouble containing the movements. Like many heads of state before him, he's trying to create an enemy from without to distract from his problems within.