Hot on the heels of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement of plans to ‘Administer the World’ and continuing with our coverage of the diplomatic falling-out between Brazil and the United States over Brasilia’s embrace of Ahmadinejad, we have this slap-in-the-face editorial from Brazil’s Estadao, which warns Brazil’s Foreign Ministry and chief executive about the self-defeating ‘megalomania’ they appear to have fallen victim to.
The Estadao editorial says in part:
“Childishness punctuates the Lula government’s policy regarding the country that counts the most in the world. A few weeks ago, Brasilia committed the impropriety of disclosing a private message from Obama to Lula, which was faxed to the Planalto [President’s Office] not coincidentally, on the eve of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit.”
“Ironically, when the tenant of the White House was named George W. Bush, the Brazilian attitude toward the U.S. was much more pleasant. The ‘man’ as people say of Lula, got along better with the dim-witted Texan. Lula, as we know, abhors cerebral leaders and has a compulsion to prove that he’s superior to them.”
“On top of the megalomania that guides him, the president seems convinced that the country’s image in the world will be boosted as long as Brazilian foreign policy is characterized by disputes with the United States.”
“Lula thinks Brazil can mediate between Iran and the U.S. This is the same sense of self-importance that lead him to talk of promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians and to forget that no Foreign Ministry initiative to resolve disagreements between neighbors has ever produced results – not between Argentina and Uruguay over the issue of paper mills, or between Venezuela and Colombia over the Colombian-American military agreement.”
“Brazil is indirectly falling subordinate to Hugo Chavez, a supporter of the Union of South American Nations, which is merely a despicable attempt to create a regional forum without the presence of the United States.”
EDITORIAL
Translated By Brandi Miller
December 16, 2009
Brazil – Estadao – Original Article (Portuguese)
Foreign Minister Celso Amorim left to Marco Aurélio Garcia, President Lula’s foreign policy advisor, and Antônio Patriota, the secretary general of Itamaraty [the Foreign Ministry], the task of meeting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs Arturo Valenzuela, when he began his first official visit to the region in Brasilia. Based on the premise that a diplomat of his importance should only speak to his peers – and those of higher rank – Foreign Minister Amorim must have imagined that if he sat at the table with the Department of State’s top official for the Americas, it would have been a public belittlement of Brazil by the U.S. – as if the stature of a nation on the international scene had something to gain from such petty details. A skilled diplomat, U.S. Assistant Secretary Valenzuela paid no attention to this. After two hours with presidential adviser Garcia, he declared, ‘it was a great conversation. We have our differences, which is to be expected.’ The response from his spokesperson was similarly friendly and conciliatory.
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