Not since the days of Jimmy Carter have we seen as craven a U.S. response to a provocation as Chavez’s plan for two 1,200-megawatt nuclear reactors 1,400 miles from our shores.

IBD Editorials

EXCERPTS:

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez moves ahead with plans to go nuclear with Russian help, and the response from our president has been to give the lunatic dictator his full backing. This is trouble.

Oh. So forget the Monroe Doctrine. Never mind President Kennedy’s response to the nuclear ambitions of Cuba. Obama’s new message to the hemisphere is that Chavez can go nuclear because he’s a democracy and will therefore act responsibly.

The real problem is the relationships Chavez is forging. Chavez’s visit to Russia and Iran to tout the nuclear deal was meant to show the U.S. that even after he lost a legislative election in September, he still mattered. And rogue states like Russia and Iran will still do dirty business with him — even if China won’t.

Chavez says he means to bring in Russian and Iranian experts for his nuclear project. That opens the door to influence from the mafiya-linked criminal underworld that includes the terrorists and arms dealers at the edges of Russia’s and Iran’s power structures.

Chavez’s closest Russian associate is Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, a raving anti-American with rumored ties to illegal arms dealer Viktor Bout. The latter was arrested in Thailand soon after the discovery in 2008 of a computer belonging to FARC terrorists.

Obama should be muscling Russia to drop the plan and threatening to make Georgia a NATO member if he doesn’t. Instead, right now, the approach is to make nice with a predator who has it in for us in more ways than one.It may buy us peace now, but it will buy only trouble in the long run.

FULL STORY

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