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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Thu Mar 31 2011 - 23:37:32 EST
Opinion
Brazil stares down the US on Libya
Tensions over Middle East policy are increasing, despite Barack Obama's
recent visit to Latin America.
*
Some commentators believed Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president,
would be more accommodating to US interests than her predecessor [AFP]*
At some point in the run-up to Barack Obama’s just concluded tour of Latin
America, which included stops in Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador, the US
press decided that coverage of the trip would focus on expected friendly
meeting with Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's recently inaugurated president.
The *Washington Post*, the* New York Times*, and National Public Radio,
along with a host of other newspapers, cable news commentators, and blogs,
all predicted that Obama, the US's first African American president, and
Rousseff, Brazil's first woman leader, would find common ground, reversing
the deterioration of diplomatic relations that had begun under Rousseff's
predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The bad blood started, or so the story went, when Lula refused to listen to
the administration of George W. Bush and isolate Venezuela's populist
leader, Hugo Chávez. Before long, Brasilia was opposing or, worse, offering
alternatives to Washington's position on a growing number of issues: climate
change, opposition to the 2009 coup in Honduras, Cuba, trade and tariffs.
Lula declined to criticise Iran and opened up a separate negotiating
channel, outside of Washington's influence and much to its annoyance, with
Tehran to discuss Iran's nuclear ambitions.
*Differences on Middle East*
The former Brazilian president also welcomed the president of the
Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas to Brazil, leading the rest of
Latin America to recognise the Palestinian state and calling for direct
talks with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Various explanations were posited in the US press for Lula's behavior,
which, for a Latin American leader, was unprecedented considering the
historically subservient role Latin America has long played to
Washington. At times it was described as a personality disorder, a striving
for attention on the world stage; at other moments it was explained away as
Lula's need to play to his party's rank and file, which, apparently, always
enjoys a good tweaking of the US's nose.
In any case, Obama's visit just after Dilma's election offered a chance for
a reset. Rousseff, it was reported, would be eager to use the trip to
distance herself from her political patron, Lula. Though she was a member of
a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organisation opposing a US-backed dictatorship
during her youth in the 1970s, Brazil's new leader had, according to
the *Washington
Post*, a "practical approach to governance and foreign relations after eight
years of the flamboyant Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva".
"She's a different person and has a different style," remarked the chairman
of Goldman Sachs asset management.
She was "warm" and would welcome Obama cordially (has it really gotten to
the point where the US, which for decades presided imperiously over the
international community, is today just happy that foreign leaders aren’t
rude when its presidents come calling?). Nearly all major news and opinion
sources thought that she would be more accommodating to Washington's
concerns than her predecessor, in Latin America but especially in the Middle
East.
Unfortunately for Washington the reality has departed from the narrative.
Brazil, under Rousseff, continues largely to follow its own diplomatic
lights.
*Libya and the UN*
Even before Obama landed in Rio, Brazil, as a non-permanent member of the UN
Security Council, joined with China and Germany to abstain from the vote
authorising "all necessary measures" against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
Since then, its opposition to the bombing has hardened. According to the
Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), Brazil's foreign ministry – still,
for the most part, staffed by the diplomats who charted Lula's foreign
policy – recently issued a statement condemning the loss of civilian lives
and calling for the start of dialogue.
Lula himself has endorsed Dilma's critical position on Libya, going further
in his condemnation of the intervention: "These invasions only happen
because the United Nations is weak," he said. "If we had
twenty-first-century representation [in the Security Council], instead of
sending a plane to drop bombs, the UN would send its secretary-general to
negotiate."
His remarks were widely interpreted to mean that if Brazil had been a
permanent member of the Security Council – a position it has long sought –
it would have vetoed the resolution authorising the bombing rather than, as
it did, merely abstaining from the vote.
These comments were the first indication that the ex-president, still
enormously popular and influential in Brazil, planned to continue to openly
weigh in on his successor’s foreign policy.
Argentina and Uruguay likewise have voiced strong disapproval of the
intervention. On one level, this censure reflects Latin America's
commitment to the ideal of non-intervention and absolute sovereignty. But
on another, less elevated and more commonsensical level, it reflects a
belief that the diplomatic community needs to return to a standard in which
war is the last rather than the first response to crisis.
"This attack [on Libya] implies a setback in the current international
order," IPS reports Uruguayan President José Mujica as saying. "The remedy
is much worse than the illness. This business of saving lives by bombing is
an inexplicable contradiction."
*Social inclusion vs IMF demands*
On other important issues as well, Brazil continues push back against
Washington.
The US-controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF), for example, is
demanding that Brazil, one of the world's fastest growing economies, calm
bond market concerns about inflation by reining in social spending.
Dilma's economic team has so far balked. It argues instead that inflation
can be controlled by government regulation of "hot money," that is, the
ability of foreign capital to place speculative bets on, and reap enormous
profits off of, Brazil’s currency.
This might sound a bit technocratic, but it is in fact a big obstacle to the
IMF's bid to restore its lost role as what economist Mark Weisbrot has
described as a "creditor’s cartel" in Latin America, the chief mechanism
through which Washington imposes "discipline" on economies, like Brazil's,
that shows too much independence.
Likewise, Brazil continues to be the main obstacle to jumpstarting the Doha
Round of the world trade talks, demanding that the US and Europe lower
tariffs to the products and commodities of the developing world. While
graciously hosting the US president, Rousseff nonetheless strongly
criticized Washington’s ability to preach free trade while practicing
protectionism, demanding that the US open its markets to Brazilian imports
such as ethanol, steel, and orange juice.
However "warm," "practical," or "cordial" Dilma, Brazil’s first woman
president, may be, she'll be no push over when it comes to matters of war,
peace, and economics.
*Greg Grandin is a professor of history at New York University and a member
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of a number
of prize-winning books, including most recently, Fordlandia: The Rise and
Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan 2009), which was a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as for the National Book
Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. *
*The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.*
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