Quick question: How far does Hugo Chavez’s rhetoric have to go before Western leaders, above all those of the United States, stop dismissing it as “mere rhetoric”?

I’m just curious because, well, he sure sounds like a real, serious enemy in league with the West’s most dangerous foes. In a telephone interview with Venezuelan TV from Tehran on Friday, he declared that Iran is “a true strategic ally, a staunch ally” of Venezuela. Whom is this alliance directed against? In Chavez’s view, Tehran and Caracas are “facing the same enemy, which is the U.S. empire and its lackeys. And we will defeat the empire and its lackeys.”

And lest anyone think there’s no Israel angle in all this — there always is — Chavez has not hesitated in the past few days to brand Israel as a “genocidal” regime. “The state of Israel has become a murderous lackey at the service of imperialism,” he said. “It’s a genocidal government. I condemn that Zionist government that persecutes the heroic Palestinian people.”

Convinced yet?