(Simón Romero) June 10.- President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela started this month as the most prominent political supporter of Colombia’s largest rebel group and a fierce defender of his own overhaul of his nation’s intelligence services. But in the space of a few hours over the weekend, he confounded his critics by switching course on both contentious policies.

In doing so, Mr. Chávez displayed a willingness for self-reinvention that has served him well in times of crisis throughout his long political career. Time and again, he has gambled by pushing brash positions and policies, then shifted to a more moderate course when the consequences seemed too dire.

And while Mr. Chávez has been accused of speaking like an autocrat and of trying to rule like one, his recent actions confirm that Venezuela’s democracy, however fragile it may seem at times, still serves as a check on the president’s wishes.

Few issues illustrated the resilience of dissent in Venezuela like the debate around Mr. Chávez’s intelligence law, which would have abolished the secret police and military intelligence and replaced them with new intelligence and counterintelligence agencies. Drafted in secret and enacted through a presidential decree, the breadth of the law shocked Mr. Chávez’s political opposition.

The law would have forced judges in Venezuela to support the intelligence services and required citizens to cooperate with community-monitoring groups, provoking widespread fears that the government wanted to follow Cuba in creating a societywide network of informants whose main purpose was to nip antigovernment activities in the bud ...

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