Lula's "success"
There has been no Brazilian foreign policy apocalypse with Lula's trip to Iran, which for reasons not entirely clear to me had seemed to become conventional wisdom. Instead, Lula helped broker a deal for Iran to swap uranium, which it had rejected before.
I will leave it to others to judge the deal itself (the Washington Post has more details), which still needs to be agreed upon and not reneged upon. This was no major breakthrough that Lula will be forever remembered for, but it edges Brazil more and more toward a recognized role as Middle East negotiator. Even if this deal falls apart, the failure will not be Lula's.
4 comments:
A quibble: Iran never "rejected" a deal to swap uranium before. There was a technical difference about the timing of material exchanges, but Iran had never flatly said no to such a deal. But bravo to Brazil and Turkey for continuing to mediate in order to find an acceptable comprimise. And bravo to our host for keeping a level head on this, when so many others see the word Iran and lose their sanity.
A day after the biggest breakthough in a long time with Iran, the US announces that sanctions are going to be voted on at the UN (today?!). Could it be any more clear that the US intends to move the goalposts as much as necessary in order to achieve its real goals in Iran, which is crippling sanctions and hopes of regime change?
No one can ever be too surprised about U.S. policy toward Iran, but I don't think many people would have expected it to happen quite this quickly.
Good to see Clinton show some balls, so to speak. Lula is delusional and should focus on solving problems at home. His presidency is a classic case of "rising tide raises all ships" because he has done absolutely nothing in terms of policy to make Brazil more competitive. He spends too much time chumming around with Chavez and now with Ahmadinejad.
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