Years back, Saddam did deliver a speech full of gravest admonitions that only the fainthearted Arabs are to bow down before the United States as the only power to decide the fate of the pan-Arab security. Chavez is also intoning the same admonitions to the Latin Americans to stand firm against the United States and its hegemonic instruments like IMF and World Bank; the difference now is he is buttressed by his solid friends: Fidel Castro of Cuba, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and President Evo Morales of Bolivia, while no Arab country dared to lend a friendly hand to Saddam. Fidel Castro also led the fight for Latin American freedom from domination by the US and international monetary organisations. Like Saddam, Castro too had then few allies in the region.

When Hugo Chavez came on to the scene, things changed. Today, several countries are working together in Latin America to use their resources for their own people and to unite as a unit to maintain their identities.

On the last May Day holiday, President Chavez declared that from the May Day holiday of 2010 the legal workweek in his country would be slashed from 40 to 36 hours or 6 hours a day. Minimum wage has already been raised by 20%. He also announced that Venezuela is going to modernize its military and offered to sell oil to the allies at a 50% discount. He has steadily worked to provide alternative forms of credit and financial support for the countries in the region, backed up by Venezuela's oil wealth. He has referred to such a project as the "Bank of the South".

Somewhat analogous to socialist policies, seizing control of oil projects in Venezuela run by large American and European energy companies may be a paradigm shift in governance, perhaps his "21st Century socialism", Chavez has been contemplating to establish first in Latin America, then probably in the rest of the world.

Now the question is: Can Chavez navigate his nation along with his allies, already plagued by inflation and poverty in South American standard, to take a stand against the US when he must continue to allow his own country to be one of the top oil suppliers of his northern nemesis?