This has nothing to do with him being a “threat to democracies in the region.” It has to do with him taking majority control of the oil projects in the Orinoco River basin by May 1. Are we looking at another conflict to protect the interests of British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips?

WASHINGTON: High-ranking US officials and lawmakers are pressuring the State Department to take a more punishing tone with Venezuela, at the risk of tossing “red meat” to President Hugo Chavez, who now rules by decree, experts told Agence France-Presse.

The US State Department’s top Latin-America diplomat, Tom Shannon, who for the past year has taken a moderate tack with Venezuela “is under pressure from within the administration and from Congress,” said Michael Shifter, vice-president of the Inter American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.

“Frustration is high in Washington about what Chavez is doing,” said Shifter, after the incoming number two at the State Department, John Negroponte, broke with Shannon’s diplomatic tack on Tuesday to hit out at Chavez.

Negroponte said Chavez “has been trying to export his kind of radical populism and I think that his behavior is threatening to democracies in the region.”

Daniel Restrepo, of the Center for American Prog­ress, said that pressure on Venezuela would rise with Negroponte in the State Department, and that members of Congress of both parties are also looking “for a way to challenge Chavez.”

Even before Negroponte’s statements on Tuesday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Chavez a threat to the United States, alongside al-Qaeda, Iran and North Korea.

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