Terrorists and Iraqi guerillas undermine US military credibility, but the broader challenge to US hegemony comes from the OPEC. The assault is two-pronged. Rising oil prices show that the US is weak enough to succumb to extortion. Oil proceeds allow hostile regimes to position themselves as regional powers and challenge US dominance.

Without OPEC, Saudi Arabia could not finance Wahhabism around the world, the Arab sheikhs—back to the camels—would stop bankrolling Al Qaeda, Iran could not spare change for Hezbollah and pay for the nuclear program, Algerian fundamentalists would fight with bows and arrows at best, and the Lybian terrorist state would cease to be an Arabic economic paradise. Increasingly, OPEC destabilizes the Western hemisphere, hitherto the domain of unchallenged American dominance. The glut of oil profits let Venezuela enter the arms race.

The US must act quickly in Venezuela. World order hinges on American authority significantly, and US deterrence must remain credible. When some petty president in Latin America’s back yard bad-mouths Bush, that’s quite a challenge. People in liberal democracies might laugh at Chavez, but Latin Americans see things differently. They know that in their milieu such insults do not go unpunished. When they do, the insulted party is detested as a weakling and loses authority. Absent a harsh American reaction to Chavez’ provocations, he scores with Latin Americans. Cuba is too small for Castro to be more than a moral lightning rod for anti-US sentiment. Venezuela is a viable country, and its president could spearhead a Latin American anti-imperialist, anti-US movement.

Chavez, if not toppled, will press the standoff with the US to maintain his credentials. Fighting the US head-on is not an option, and mere pronouncements cannot go on forever. He will have to act. Venezuela is likely to support anti-US forces in other Latin American countries and engage in a charity spree, small aid to many causes. Venezuela under Chavez will copy Iran under Ahmadinejad.

The world is in flux, and empires cannot rest on their laurels. The Pax Romana wasn’t peaceful at all: Rome spared itself major wars with continuous minor conflicts. An empire cannot stop fighting and must at every provocation. When the response is predictably harsh, provocations are few. Whether the people of the United States want their country to be a super-state, the world’s arbiter, is another question.