Fiery Chávez Aims For a Global Role

Venezuela Seeks Security Council Seat

BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept. 22 -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's blistering attack on President Bush at the United Nations this week marked a striking crescendo in a campaign to project Venezuela as a country with the global reach to counter American initiatives.

Swimming in wealth from an oil bonanza, Venezuela has bestowed billions of dollars in aid and preferential deals across Latin America, burnishing Chávez's image as heir apparent to President Fidel Castro of Cuba, his mentor and close friend.

But in recent months, Chávez has been traveling the world -- not just seeking the economic deals his internationalist government has always wanted, but also pressing for influence in affairs far from Latin America, political analysts say. His immediate goal is to obtain enough backing to secure a two-year spot on the 15-member U.N. Security Council, a campaign the Bush administration is vigorously opposing by backing tiny Guatemala for the seat. But his long-term goal appears to be more far-reaching.

"Venezuela was too small for him; now I think Latin America is too small for him," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group. "He wants to be a global leader who can shape the international agenda. This is sort of a shift to being involved in decision-making on very sensitive international and political affairs."

In one of the most derisive and caustic speeches in U.N. history, the Venezuelan leader on Wednesday labeled Bush "the devil" and "dear world dictator," leading to sustained applause at the General Assembly. On Thursday, speaking to the congregants of a church in Harlem, he called Bush an alcoholic and a sick man, "but very dangerous because he has lots of power."

Since July, Chávez's feverish travel schedule has taken him to Iran, Syria, Russia, China, Vietnam, Belarus and other nations whose governments are often on less than favorable terms with the United States.

He has come away with support for his bid to gain the Security Council seat next month -- among his backers are Russia and China, who hold permanent council seats -- and solidified alliances against the Bush administration. Chávez has railed against American efforts to neutralize Iran's nuclear efforts and the administration's support of Israel in its invasion of Lebanon.

Obtaining a Security Council seat would only further empower Chávez. "This is why he's putting on the full-court press for the Security Council," said Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University. "He sees this as a launching pad for Venezuela on the U.N. stage, which is a global stage. And there's no question that he would use the U.N. as a personal hobbyhorse to harass the White House."

Venezuelan officials cast Chávez's diplomatic efforts as a high-minded necessity in the face of American imperialism. And they predicted that the General Assembly would approve Venezuela's entry into the Security Council.

"The president's discourse and metaphors can leave people surprised, but they also generate a lot of solidarity, too, which will be put to the test in the Security Council vote," Francisco Arias Cárdenas, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations, said by telephone from New York. "Saying these truths do not do damage."

Yet the Venezuelan leader's foreign policy has had mixed results.

In Latin America, he has mined widespread aversion to the Bush administration and capitalized on American blunders, such as the White House's decision to give tacit support to the opposition leaders who briefly overthrew Chávez in 2002.