Brazil's Lula Raises Concern with Iran Embrace

Stuart Grudgings
Reuters
March 11, 2010

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose charm and everyman style have made him a hit on the world stage, is risking trouble at home and abroad with a puzzling embrace of Iran just as world opinion hardens over its nuclear program.

Lula, a former union leader who was jailed by Brazil's military rulers in the 1970s, has refused to criticize Iran's human rights record and welcomed Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brazil with hugs and smiles late last year.

In May, he plans to visit Tehran to boost trade ties even as support builds in the United Nations for a fresh round of sanctions. U.S. patience with Lula was stretched further last week when he spurned visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's attempt to persuade Brazil to vote for new sanctions, warning against pushing Iran "into a corner."

The against-the-grain approach on Iran has come as a surprise to many who have grown to see Lula as the likeable face of Brazil's economic and diplomatic rise in recent years.

The Miami Herald in an editorial this week called Lula's Iran policy "dangerously obtuse and unworthy of a country that aspires to be considered an equal among the world's leaders..."

"...There's definite political risk here for the Brazilians," said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas in Washington and a former state department official.

"Obviously, they've chosen to do something else, but at what cost? I think this will increasingly become an issue in the presidential election."

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