New Delhi, India: May 27, 2010 – The last week has made the clock to turn back when the Brazil diplomacy under their President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva decided to mediate in a dispute far away from the region of South America. The dispute was regarding Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. The new developments have made the status of Brazil more important and significant.
If one looks at the background of the developments, it is obviously necessary first to look at the main qualifications as a regional power ascending as a great power?
One of the great qualifications for a regional power in ascendance to a great power is to mediate into a dispute beyond its sphere of influence from the time that particular nation is born and made independent in contemporary times.
The classic example which comes to our mind is the intervention of the United States in the war between Japan and Russia in the Far East in 1905 when the Russian Navy was defeated by the Imperial Japan.
Following the war, a peace conference was held in Boston in the United States under the aegis of then US President Theodore Roosevelt. This was the beginning of the imperial policing of the Uncle Sam regime.
However the last week has made the clock to turn back when the Brazil diplomacy under their President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva decided to mediate in a dispute far away from the region of South America.
The dispute was regarding Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Washington
and the western allies claim that Iran is involved in the enrichment program to build nuclear weapons whereas Iran defends the enrichment program by stating that the enrichment program is meant for medical purpose.
Now, the great game involved with major players such as US, Russia,China, and the United Kingdom. But the silent deal maker was Brazil which started to get the limelight after using its influence to swap a deal with Turkey Iran, Turkey and Brazil for swapping Iranian low-enriched uranium for fuel rods for use in a medical reactor. The deal has taken the wind out of the U.S. sails literally.
US have been planning to use its influence to steer Iran to its path using sanctions and inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency. As Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the IAEA has a right to investigate the nuclear faculties in Iran and can impose strict actions if found violating the principle of the NPT which is against any further nuclear enrichment from the signatories.
It is more a pressure tactic from the Washington.However, to evade from the pressure Iran has used Brazil (or the other way around) as an interlocutor to see through favorably in this matter.
So far what has happened is that Brazil and Turkey helped broker an agreement announced on May 16, 2010 under which Tehran agreed to send uranium abroad, reviving a fuel swap plan as drafted by the United Nations with the aim of keeping Iran’s nuclear activities in check.
On the other hand, the US regards that deal as a delaying tactic by Iran and major powers including China and Russia, presented the United Nations Security with a draft plan to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. Iran had announced that it would cancel the accord with Turkey and Brazil if the UN Security Council approved a fourth round of sanctions against it.
So the question now arises on what Brazil aims to achieve out of this? Iran is not in Brazil’s sphere of influence; neither Brazil has got economic or militarily might to projects its might in Asia. However, Brazil tries to score the political point out of this gambit. The game plan is quite simple being in the Southern Hemisphere it tries to bailout another third world country in Iran out of the diplomatic entanglement laid by the western powers. In this way it tries to play for the time being as a proponent of alternative source of power and wishes to engage with other countries in ascendance of power just like the US tried to project its might politically as an arsenal of democracy in the early part of the 20th century before projecting as a
militarily and economic super power in the later part. This seems to
be strategy of Brazil.
Finally, but for nothing that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had been named Person of the Year by the Times magazine recently. He is the first Latin American to be named in the Times magazine which speaks a lot about the years to come in which we would hear more of the soft power of Samba, traditional Brazilian dance instead of rock and jazz in years to come throughout the world.
(The above article was written by Balaji Chandramohan, Editor of
World Security Network. He can be contacted in his email)
mohanbalaji2003@gmail.com, mohanbalaji20032004@yahoo.co.in
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