All for a seat alongside the ‘devil’ at UN

But the summit also provided a marvelous opportunity for one of the stars of the show — Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez — to lobby strong and hard for his cause of the day, getting his country elected as one of Latin America’s two nonpermanent members of the United Nations Security Council for the 2007-2008 term.

The Non-Aligned Movement has well over 100 members; all of them vote in the UN General Assembly, which, sometime next month, will elect Argentina’s replacement as one of Latin America’s two representatives on the Council. Chavez wants the seat badly. Next year there is another dramatic battle shaping up: Turkey, Iceland and Austria will compete for two of the three European slots. But the main event this year is the contest between Venezuela and Guatemala for the Latin American post.

This is, in fact, a proxy battle between Bush and Chavez. Washington has gone all-out to stop Chavez from winning; the Venezuelan has been personally campaigning for months all over the globe, doling out petrodollars, Oil and gas projects, schools and hospitals as he jets from capital to capital in Africa, Asia and his home region.

The risk for the US is real. Chavez would probably occupy the seat personally for extended periods at a time, in lieu of his permanent representative or his foreign minister. He would use that magnificent pulpit to glorify his Bolivarian Revolution, to help his...