The Ugo Chavez Traveling Circus

He has the potential to become a very powerful international figure...

I guess it depends on what is meant by powerful. He has the potential to make the gullible Western powers dance on the end of a string, like Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il, but he has very little power or potential power on his own. Venezuela doesn't have enough of a military to be concerned with. Even if he were to purchase or develop nuclear weapons, the wherewithal to deliver them here is beyond him. The only thing he could probably muster would be a strong opposition to any adventurism we might undertake.

...I think we should all be a little more concerned about (and aware of) the state of Venezuela.

Careful, the neocons will hear you. That's what got us into Iraq.

Really, the biggest threat Chavez poses is that someone will actually take him seriously. He is in the business of polemics. Anyone who takes him seriously will be forced to choose a side in the big, global football game. In the good old days, we had Presidents who would watch these clowns and then arrange for them to have an "accident" when they got too big for their britches. Now we have Presidents who screw around with the half-wits in the UN and who treat bellicose, tinpot dictators and rag-tag terrorist outfits as if they had equal standing with the bona fide nation-states of the world.