Why is Chavez supporting FARC?

A story in today’s Washington Post revealed the direct links between top officials in Venezuela’s government and FARC, the narco-terrorist organization in Colombia:

High-ranking officials in Venezuela offered to help Colombian guerrillas obtain surface-to-air missiles meant to change the balance of power in their war with the Colombian government, according to internal rebel documents.

Venezuelan officials served as middlemen with Australian [!] arms dealers and agreed to help the rebel commanders travel to the Middle East to receive missile training, according to files on computer hard drives seized by Colombian authorities and shown to The Washington Post.

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At Colombia's request, Interpol, the international police agency, has completed an extensive forensic analysis on the hard drives, which were confiscated in an army raid on a rebel camp on March 1. On Thursday, Interpol is expected to announce that there is no evidence that anyone tampered with the hard drives after they were seized, though the agency cannot vouch for the veracity of the rebels' claims, according to an American official knowledgeable about the study.

The documents are the latest to be released among 16,000 files and photographs being reviewed by Colombian and U.S. officials that describe meetings between FARC commanders and Venezuelan officials, including Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín; the military intelligence chief, Gen. Hugo Carvajal; other top generals such as Clíver Alcalá; and Amilkar Figueroa, who organizes Venezuela's civilian militias.

[…]

Colombian officials made dozens of documents available to reporters shortly after commandos recovered laptops and hard drives in a rebel camp just inside Ecuador's northern border. The documents belonged to Luis Edgar Devia, alias Raúl Reyes, a top commander killed in an airstrike on the camp.

Why would President Chavez take this risk? President Uribe’s campaign against FARC is very popular inside Colombia; the Colombian electorate voted overwhelming to amend the constitution and allow Mr. Uribe a second term so that he could continue the war against FARC. There is no chance of FARC gaining popular legitimacy inside Colombia.

Perhaps Mr. Chavez had visions of another Afghanistan scenario for Colombia. Just as the CIA did with the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s, perhaps he hoped that providing surface-to-air missiles to FARC would neutralize the Colombian army’s helicopter-borne mobility, a menace to FARC’s operations.

But again, to what end? Does President Chavez believe the Colombia government is an expansionary power that needs to be reined in? Did Venezuela thus decide to prosecute a proxy war against Colombia in order to distract it from its supposed imperial ambitions? Is this really the way Mr. Chavez views his part of the world?

We know that Mr. Chavez expresses a visceral contempt for the U.S. government. Perhaps he believed that attacking Colombia was roughly equivalent to attacking the U.S. Perhaps he believes that the more he can get Colombia to totter, the more money, prestige, and even manpower the U.S. will have to commit to the battle.

If those are the benefits Mr. Chavez sees to his policy, what have been the risks? Although he may be hoping for an overreaction from Washington, he will not likely get it. Instead, he will harden governments in Latin America and elsewhere against him. Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Canada, and the rest of the Europeans are now much more likely to turn their backs on him. Once his international legitimacy is erased, further belligerency by Mr. Chavez will be met with resistance, led by his Latin neighbors who have the most to fear from him. They know Venezuelan society better than anyone. They also know those inside Venezuela who may be the most concerned about Mr. Chavez and his antics.

Mr. Chavez may be trying to incite a conflict with the U.S. But his downfall will be a local affair, perhaps as local as the palace he lives in or the armored car he rides in.