Ahmadinejad's Visit Heats Up Brazil

By Michael Shifter
Poder, January 5, 2010

The Iranian government captured its biggest prize yet in Latin America with the visit of President Ahmadinejad to Brazil in late November.  Today Brazil is perhaps the hottest brand on the global market –the decision to hold the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro was icing on the cake -- and Iran was naturally eager to ride that wave as a way to boost its own legitimacy.  The visit reflected Brazil’s growing role as an international player and its self-confidence that engagement could be pursued with regimes of all stripes, without paying any political cost on the world stage.

The Lula government’s calculated decision to receive Ahmadinejad was understandable and was defended in terms of Brazil’s expanding commercial and economic ties with Iran and its broader interest in the Middle East.  After all, Israeli president Shimon Peres had been in Brazil two weeks before, and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas had also made the rounds.

While there may have been only minor political fallout for the Lula administration, Brazil’s intended message that Iran should be engaged, not isolated, was not aided by the visit’s timing.  Several months back, there had been some sliver of hope in the international community that it would be feasible to pursue talks with Iran, with the aim of convincing the country to open its suspect nuclear program to international inspection.

But by October that hope had proved fleeting, as Iran reasserted its hard-line and stubborn stance, in defiance of international public opinion.  Lula’s statements with Ahmadinejad were predictably measured and anodyne, but did not take into account the enormous controversy about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and repressive practices at home.

The visit did prompt some protests in Brazil, and Lula certainly took some political heat domestically for meeting with Ahmadinejad.  In Washington, a few Congressional voices were critical and disappointed with the trip.  Engel, who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, called it “disgraceful.”

And though the Obama administration was formally silent on the matter, there is little doubt that the visit -- taking place at such a sensitive moment in US-Iranian relations -- annoyed some policy makers.  Together with issues on the US-Latin American agenda such as the Honduras crisis and the US-Colombia pact on military bases, Ahmadinejad’s Brazil visit somewhat dampened Washington’s enthusiasm for pursuing the often-mentioned “strategic partnership” with South America’s regional power.