Brazil's Self-Defeating 'Exotic and Immature' Iran Diplomacy
"How
to explain our alignment with Tehran when contrasted with our vital and
traditional political and economic allies such as the U.S., Germany, the U.K.,
France, and the Arab countries (who are just as frightened of an Iranian bomb
as Israel)? What do we gain by defending such an oppressive regime that has so
many enemies?"
Brazil's diplomatic defeat on
Iran sanctions at the U.N. Security Council must be deconstructed.
There is a victory in this
defeat. The name of Brazil is all over the news because of the issue. If the
Americans are right that there is no such thing as bad publicity, then even in defeat, this projection of our diplomacy brings some benefit.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
The stature and profile of Brazil
has grown much during the Lula era, owing both to him personally and to our
growing economic strength. Together, economic development and political and institutional
stability has allowed Brazil to stand out among the other emerging lions.
Within the International Monetary
Fund, which once enslaved us, we have more influence in partnership with other
emerging countries, and have been strengthened by the crisis. At the Bank for
International Settlements, Brazilian representative Henrique
Meirelles sits on the board of this important body, which commands as much
as $250 billion in international reserves. At the WTO, our vote is valuable and
influential. At the G20 we are heard as a country that has navigated the
financial storm well.
But
on the U.N. Security Council, we're heard by few.
Of the 15 members of the U.N.'s
executive organ, only Brazil and Turkey voted in favor of Iran and against new
sanctions over the Islamic theocracy's clandestine nuclear program.
Brazil has plunged headlong into
Middle East politics, although we haven't had a role in the region since distant
1947, when Oswaldo Aranha
led the Security Council session that approved the partition of Palestine between
the Israelis and Palestinians. If it's easy to understand why Turkey voted for
Iran, it's hard to justify our position in New York.
How to explain our alignment
with Tehran when contrasted with our vital and traditional political and
economic allies such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France,
and the Arab countries (who are just as frightened of an Iranian bomb as Israel)?
What do we gain by defending such an oppressive regime that has so many enemies?
We gained autonomy and a
voice on the international stage, which are important assets. But Brazil didn't
need to sacrifice so much to achieve such a gain, which in fact it already has.
We seem like adolescents who want to show that we've grown up and can argue
with adults.
This is more apparent in the
Middle East, given our hitherto lack of understanding and involvement. Even in
the Americas, where we're not naïve but overconfident, we're stuck in supranational
organizations that are impotent or divided. And the objective of reforming the U.N.
Security Council becomes more distant when we have Ahmadinejad defending it by
our side.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
It is time for Brazil's politians
to follow our economic policy and become decisive and valuable in the
great global debates. Today we're pursuing a foreign policy of those who insist
on keeping us separated from those we are closest to. It's time to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development, the body comprised of the most developed countries, which
invited us years ago and where we belong. This belated third-worldism is a
mental complex of losers, and our immature and exotic foreign policy its most
obvious manifestation.
Sérgio
Malbergier is the editor of the
Money section of the Folha de S. Paulo. He was the editor of the World
section (2000-2004), a correspondent in London (1994) and sent as a special
correspondent to countries like Iraq, Israel and Venezuela, among others. He
has directed two short films, AÁrvore [The Tree] (1986) and Carô no Inferno [Carô in Hell] (1987). He
writes for Folha Online on Thursdays. E-mail:smalberg@uol.com.br
