Is it wrong for President Obama to support India’s bid for a U.N. Security Council Seat, while appearing to oppose Brazil’s? For the newspaper Estadao, Brazil’s former ambassador to the United States, Roberto Abdenur, insists that Washington take another look at Brazil’s qualifications, and suggests that sidelining Brazil for opposing U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran would be unjust.
For Estadao, Roberto Abdenur writes in part:
According to a State Department source, Brazil committed a “mortal sin,” a “stupid mistake,” by opposing sanctions approved by the Council against Iran. Given this, when President Obama visits Brazil in March, only a “miracle” will bring him to support Brazil’s bid for a permanent seat on the Council. … It’s obvious that the attitude of the Lula government was a thunderous anomaly in the sense that in that case, no national interest of Brazil was at stake. That was a serious and unfortunate misadventure – albeit momentary and fleeting – and a deviation from the historic norms of Brazilian diplomacy. It was an isolated event that has been overcome and in no way represents a change in the international trajectory of the country.
In his recent visit to New Delhi, President Obama ended his silence on the enlargement of the Security Council and raved about India, whose bid for a permanent Council seat he fully endorsed. And he did so while formalizing an unprecedented deal on U.S. nuclear cooperation with the country, which became a nuclear-armed power in defiance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Is the U.S. now adopting the possession of The Bomb as a criterion for supporting bids for U.N. Security Council seats? If so, Brazil will certainly never have the means to obtain a permanent seat on the Council (nor will any of the other strong candidates, such as Germany or Japan).
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
Founder and Managing Editor of Worldmeets.US