This is a very insightful commentary. If I can add to it as someone who has "signifincant" contact in South America, the tide is turning. My second home, Argentina is one example. If Christina Fernandez Kirchner survives her presidency she will be trounced. However, she has begun to pay people to remain unemployed. A person working hard can earn 400 pesos per month but a person unemployed with several children can get as much as 1,000 pesos per month from the govt. She is using her ill gotten gains to buy votes.

This is exactly what Chavez has been doing and when he had the revenue from oil he could get away with it. Now he is running a vote buy that cannot be sustained. When the well runs dry he will be overthrown in election or revolution.

I was also a Soviet intel expert and I can say that if he crosses the Russians he will not live long past that day. Doesn't matter if there is no Soviet Union anymore, the infrastructure is still there. Anyone wonder why there has never been a terrorist attack on Russia from the Muslims who have just as much right to hate them as the U.S. ? It is because any attempt is met with swift and bloddy retribution. They lack the restraints of the Western world. This is what awaits Chavez.