2064) O Brasil conciliador com o Iran, na visao de um americano

Interessante que no caso de Honduras, um país sem a importância do Irã, o Brasil foi tudo menos conciliador...

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Brazil and Its Global Agenda
Stanley Foundation, April 2010

(Editor’s Note: Stanley Foundation program officer David Shorr recently visited Brazil where he held a series of conversations with members of Brazil’s foreign policy community. This article is a summary of his perspectives on Brazil’s role in the world.)

In mid-March, Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva visited the Middle East on a five-day swing through Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. The trip aptly symbolized the growing influence of a country whose recent rise in global stature is exceeded only by China and India. Behind the symbolism, of course, was the famously charismatic leader’s effort to exert Brazil’s diplomatic influence on some of the world’s most sensitive and prominent challenges—Middle East peace and the Iranian nuclear program. That effort has, in turn, prompted a nascent debate over Brazil’s global political role.

In interviews prior to his visit, Lula professed his strong belief in the power of dialogue to resolve conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian clash as well as the peacemaking contribution Brazil can make, given its generally amicable relations with most other nations. Beyond the question of whether, as President Lula claims, a new set of interlocutors can be more successful in bringing Middle East peace, there’s the matter of how much diplomatic heavy lifting Brazil can or should handle.

Recent global shifts have not only boosted the influence of emergent powers like China and Brazil, they have also brought an agenda of challenges (climate change, nonproliferation, economic development) that are harder to solve—that will require more than just a few decisions by a few key powers. This seems to argue for an all-hands-on-deck approach to international cooperation and leadership. Not just for Brazil, but any influential nation that can help with the lifting.

To say that Brazil should be an international leader—beyond its inevitable role in the Western Hemispheric region—leaves room for debate regarding whether and how it could do so. The dilemmas of the Iran case are already serving as somewhat of a test. President Lula has cultivated good relations with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, just as international pressure is mounting for Iran to give added transparency and reassurance that its nuclear program is civilian. This certainly fits with the strategy of being “friend to all.” Yet it also begs the question of whether conciliation rather than pressure in response to another nation’s actions is always the best path to peace.

—David Shorr