Here's one: at Sunday's summit of OPEC leaders, Chavez -- president of oil-rich Venezuela -- suggested that "OPEC should set itself up as an active political agent," according to The Houston Chronicle. He means, of course, that OPEC should use oil as a bargaining tool. He means, of course, that OPEC should greatly increase the price of oil specifically to harm the United States, which Chavez has set up as the enemy that only he can vanquish.

Tilting at windmills much? As if Chavez didn't already have dictatorial tendencies (which have before been chronicled in this space), now we have him creating an enemy for his people to hate, with the promise that he will save them from that enemy. This is chapter four of the Dictator's Playbook, one used to good advantage by Mssrs. Hitler, Stalin, and honorable mention for the Party in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nothing unites people like a common foe.

Both Chavez and his new best friend, Iranian president and winner of the Definitely Not Crazy Wet T-Shirt Contest at the Hooter's in Persepolis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, blamed the rising price of oil on the weakening U.S. dollar. Oil is traded in U.S. dollars, and as the value of the dollar decreases, countries would have to increase the price of oil to compensate. This makes sense only if you discount the fact that the price of oil started increasing before the U.S. dollar went into decline, which was before this summer when the credit crunch caused the world's faith in the U.S. markets to decline. May I also add that, as both Chavez and Ahmadinejad are Princeton-trained economists, their statements are totally earnest and in no way an attempt to lash out at the United States.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia may approve of lashing a woman 200 times for the crime of being raped (although, in Saudi Arabia's defense, the crime wasn't that she got raped, but that she talked about it publicly and tried to get her attackers prosecuted), but that doesn't mean he's a fool. "Those who want OPEC to take advantage of its position are forgetting that OPEC has always acted moderately and wisely," he said.

It's true that OPEC meets the technical definition of a cartel: a small group of firms in an oligopolistic market that meet to set prices so as to take advantage of the relative inelasticity of demand. But in the past, OPEC has used its cartel-power to make money, not political statements. And whenever OPEC has set its prices, Saudi Arabia -- whose number one customer is the United States -- has always caved in. If they give us cheap oil, we won't press for "regime change" in a country run by a theocratic dictator whose government supports terrorism. But trust us: Saddam Hussein was the most heinous threat facing our nation, much like the guy who ran that stop sign should be arrested before the guy who's driving over a hundred and weaving in and out of traffic.

Disappointingly, not many nations have joined Chavez and Ahmadinejad's new after-school club for countries that hate the United States. President Bush is only shooting himself in the face with a hunting rifle by making macho condemnations of Iran, fueling their sense of outrage and making the United States even less of a diplomatic power. (Note to GWB: You forgot the "speak softly" part.) For now, our enemies will remain our enemies in private, deciding -- unlike the Gruesome Twosome -- to publicly remain our friends. It would be bad for business for most other countries in the world (of course, it doesn't cost Chavez or Ahmadinejad anything; they don't trade with us, anyway!).