The hemisphere’s other nations have a direct stake in attempting to pre-empt a fight that would force them to take sides and might threaten their economic and national-security interests. Although many of Chávez’s positions have found support in certain Latin American nations, the division that he and Castro’s Cuba have created in Latin America – between left and right, free-traders and “Bolivarians,” and pro- and anti- Americans – is mainly artificial and certainly not impossible to overcome.