Will Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chávez tone down his inflammatory rhetoric and stop harassing the press following the failed military coup that
  tried to topple him? Or will he become a full-blown dictator as soon as the world looks another way?

  I have asked these questions to more than a dozen well-placed regional diplomats in recent days, after Chávez said he had learned a ''major lesson''
  from the bloody events that shook his country April 12 and that he would set up a national reconciliation commission to seek an understanding with his
  political opponents.

  Judging from what I heard, Chávez -- a former coup plotter who was elected in 1998 and vowed to stay in power until 2021 -- may go in any of the
  following directions.

  • The Nicaraguan scenario: Chávez's post-coup moderation may only be a short-lived tactical retreat, while he regroups his forces and recovers full
  control of the country.

  Much like Nicaragua's former leftist Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega did repeatedly during his 11-year rule in the 1980s, Chávez will pursue a
  one-step-backward, two-steps-forward strategy. He will muddle through with an authoritarian populist government that will allow some spaces of free
  speech to shield himself from foreign criticism.

  Nicaragua's Ortega kept much of the world guessing for many years on whether he was a socially conscious democrat under attack from his country's
  rich, or a shrewd Marxist who knew how to play international public opinion. After more than a decade in power, Ortega was finally defeated in 1990
  elections.

  • The Cuban scenario: Chávez -- a proud admirer of Cuban ruler Fidel Castro -- may soon conclude that he can't hold on to power with fiercely
  independent media, hostile labor unions and opposition political parties. He will denounce an international conspiracy against him, shelve his current
  conciliatory rhetoric, and impose a full-flown Cuban-style dictatorship.

  That's what Castro did after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, when he used the attack as an excuse to permanently suppress whatever
  fundamental freedoms were still respected on the island. Castro assumed all civilian and military powers, and became Cuba's de facto president for life.

  • The Chilean scenario: Chávez may weather the storm by purging Venezuela's armed forces and putting his most trusted generals in the top jobs, but
  only to be toppled a few months later -- this time for good -- by his newly appointed generals.

  That's what happened in Chile in 1973. On June 28 that year, leftist President Salvador Allende survived a military coup. A day later, he greeted
  thousands of followers in front of the presidential palace, purged suspicious generals from the military high command and put loyal generals in their place.
  Less than three months later, the newly appointed generals -- headed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet -- toppled Allende and installed a 17-year dictatorship.

  The Chávez government says it has arrested 81 generals and colonels for their alleged participation in the coup. But Venezuela has more than 250
  generals. There could be a Pinochet lurking in the background.

  • The Argentine scenario: Chávez may conclude that he cannot go on insulting virtually every institution in the country that doesn't support his
  ''Bolivarian revolution'' and will enter a second -- more pragmatic -- phase of his government.

  That's what late Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón -- like Chávez, an army officer turned populist politician -- did after being toppled by a military
  coup in 1955. Perón returned to office in 1973 with a message of reconciliation and national unity, which he maintained until his death a year later.

  • The Venezuelan scenario: Chávez may have concluded that he is more vulnerable than he thought, and that his attacks on what he calls the
  ''oligarchy'' have only helped scare away investors, trigger massive capital flight and make Venezuela poorer. He may leave behind his self-declared
  ''Maoism'' and become a leftist social-democrat.

  Which scenario will hold, then? Most diplomats I talked to are skeptical that Chávez will undergo a political conversion. None of them remembered any
  case of a former army officer turned leftist leader who made a political U-turn while in power. Argentina's Perón changed, sort of, but after 18 years of
  exile in Europe.

  I'm afraid that Chávez will try to win time by making some conciliatory moves, and then return to his old authoritarian self -- a la Nicaraguan. His
  messianic personality will naturally lead him in that direction, and he risks losing the backing of his radical supporters -- the core of his current support -- if
  he tones down his incendiary rhetoric.

  As they say in Latin America, Chávez may feel compelled to ''huir para adelante'' (retreat forward) and continue with his disastrous ``revolution.'' But he is
  an elected president, and if he meets his latest promise to respect democratic freedoms -- a big if -- he should be given the benefit of the doubt. Once in
  a while, miracles happen.