CARACAS, Venezuela—It was a sign of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's growing stature as a revolutionary figurehead that he was the first leader to visit Cuba's aging leader Fidel Castro as the world speculated over the communist-run island's future.
Even before surgery forced the Cuban leader to cede power temporarily to his younger brother, pundits were debating whether Chavez would become Castro's heir on the international stage.
Castro and Chavez have both prospered from a left-wing resurgence in Latin America and there are parallels between the aging Cuban rebel and the former army officer who led a failed coup six years before his 1998 election.
Chavez has carved out a place as a player willing to oppose Washington by flexing his oil muscle to tame U.S. "imperialism" and offer energy deals as a sweetener for Latin American neighbors, including Cuba.
Hailed as a hero by indigenous movements and applauded by left-wing literati, Chavez presents his "Bolivarian revolution" -- named after South American liberation hero Simon Bolivar -- as a model for regional solidarity against U.S. policies.
Venezuelan oil has also helped pay for free medical care and literacy for thousands in the region.
But while many see Chavez as a new voice for social justice and anti-U.S. sentiment, Latin American experts question whether the former paratrooper has the political heft that made his close ally a Third World icon during his heyday.
"Whatever stature Chavez has achieved would be difficult to imagine without his oil largess," said Michael Shifter at the InterAmerican Dialogue think tank. "In the 1960s and 1970s Castro's Cuba was seen as an appealing alternative for many on the left in Latin America."
Times have changed since Castro put Cuba at the center of the international spotlight during the Cold War by sending troops to fight in Africa and training rebel armies to fight in Latin America.
"Castro broke the mold in terms of third world activism on the international stage and this is not going to be replicable," said Damian Fernandez, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.
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Chavez is popular at home as he pumps on oil cash windfall into programs for the poor even while he fends off critics who say he has slowly eroded democracy by controlling courts, the electoral authority and threatening private property rights.
Fellow leftist Latin American governments who may see Castro as an icon have been more cautious in their embrace of the Venezuelan firebrand's radical politics. Chavez blasts U.S. free trade deals as imperialism, for example, but the accords are often economic lifelines for his neighbors.
During his 47 years in power Castro has been one of Washington's constant enemies who is subject to a trade embargo and sanctions. The Bush Administration two years ago launched a plan to undermine him with tighter economic sanctions and promote a multiparty democracy.
U.S. officials have also branded Chavez a authoritarian threat to the region, accusing him of using his oil wealth to spread an anti-democratic message. U.S. officials recently slapped sanctions on Caracas for its ties to Cuba and Iran.
But his relationship with Washington is complicated by oil which entangles the two economies. Despite the harsh rhetoric, Venezuela still sells most of its petroleum to the U.S. market.
"Like Castro, he has drawn American opposition, but Washington has not done him the favor of putting him in the limelight and trying overtly to eliminate him," said Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at Lexington Institute, a U-S-based conservative think tank.
Still, oil has also given Chavez the economic independence and leverage Castro never had. An OPEC member, Venezuela is the world's No. 5 crude exporter.
With oil prices soaring, Latin America struggling to combat poverty and the U.S. administration finding little footing in the region, analysts say Chavez cannot be dismissed even if he does not manage to muster Castro's political statue.
"As long as Latin America has the class and social divisions as it has and tense and ambivalent relations with the United States, there is always going to be space for someone to play the role Fidel has played," said Julia Sweig at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
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