Editorial

Inoxidáveis,

Interessante que não houve repercussão na nossa mídia amestrada. Ser
chamado de ignorante e analfabeto pelo Caetano Veloso é uma coisa. Ser
chamado de ignorante pelo Washington Post, em Editorial, é outra
coisa...

A hug from Lula

Why Brazil's president offered a red carpet to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Friday, November 27, 2009

FOR SEVERAL years, U.S. policy in Latin America has aimed at forging a
partnership with Brazil. Like the Bush administration before it, the
Obama administration sees Latin America's largest country as an
emerging superpower whose economic dynamism and relatively stable
democracy make it a natural ally. But Brazil's potential has been
frequently overestimated in the past; an old saw says it will always
be the country of the future. And this week its popular but erratic
president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is doing his best to prove the
cynics right.

On Monday Mr. Lula literally gave a bear hug to Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who thereby recorded a major advance in his
effort to prop up his shaky domestic and international standing.
Heading an extremist regime that is rejected by the majority of
Iranians -- and that has just spurned a compromise on its outlaw
nuclear program -- the Iranian president headed abroad in search of
friends. He found few: Gambia and Senegal in Africa; and Hugo Chávez's
Venezuela, along with two of its satellites, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's world tour would have looked pathetic and served to
underline the growing isolation of his hard-line clique, if not for
the warm welcome from Mr. Lula. When even Russia is publicly
discussing new sanctions against Tehran, the Brazilian government
signed 13 cooperation agreements with the regime, prompting Mr.
Ahmadinejad to predict that bilateral trade would grow fifteenfold.

Mr. Lula had nothing to say about the bloody suppression of Iran's
pro-democracy reform movement, or Mr. Ahmadinejad's denial of the
Holocaust and Israel's right to exist. Instead he declared that Iran
has a right to its nuclear program. Mr. Ahmadinejad, in turn, endorsed
Brazil's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Mr. Lula showed why the West would be wise to keep that chair on hold.
His advocates say he invited the Iranian president because he aspires
to broker peace in the Middle East. If so, the Brazilian president
merely demonstrated his ignorance of the region. The Revolutionary
Guard faction that Mr. Ahmadinejad represents is the force most
implacably opposed to an Israeli-Arab settlement; that's why it backs
the terrorism of Hamas and Hezbollah. Mr. Lula's embrace of Mr.
Ahmadinejad will not change his fanaticism, but it may make him
stronger. It will also ensure that any attempt by Brazil to intervene
in the Middle East will be dismissed by Israel and mainstream Arab
governments

Brazil may yet become a regional power; Mr. Lula's mostly sensible
domestic policies have made it stronger. But if it is to acquire
global influence, Brazil will have to reform the anachronistic Third
Worldism that informs its foreign policy. By embracing pariahs such as
Mr. Ahmadinejad or attempting to position itself between the
democratic West and the world's rogue states, Brazil will merely
ensure that it remains the country of the future.