A quick reaction on an another article in Newsweek, "Leaning on Lula", from James P. Rubin, who is "an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and an informal foreign policy advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. Having served in the State Department during the administration of President Bill Clinton, he became a Sky News television news journalist."
This article, way better than the one from Stefan Theil, is defending - in a very rough summary - the following thesis : if "International Atomic Energy Agency [which] made clear in its most recent report that Tehran still refuses to suspend its nuclear enrichment programs [...] and notes that there are substantial grounds to believe that Iran's program is intended to build a nuclear weapon" then "countries like Turkey and Brazil [...] should respond when a U.N. agency issues such a report."
Mr Rubin then continues with "if countries like Brazil want to play a more prominent role, then they have to shoulder the responsibility of upholding those rules. When the IAEA declares Iran is flouting those rules, responsible countries must respond and punish the rule breakers."
Seems obvious, isn't it? Though, I would say "What you have to understand is that there is a real world and an ideal world.", isn't it Mr Rubin?
Of course from an ideal point of view, one might think such an argument could not be clearer and fair. Meanwhile, I would like to make people think about something.
We are living in a world of diversity. It has been thought for a long time capitalism and globalization would expand occidental values like democracy and liberalism to the rest of the world. It appears to be a naive view of how nations are reacting/behaving and negating identity differences from each other. A more real picture would be that each nation has its own culture and because of this, its own idea of how politics and commerce should be run whatever it be democratic or not and/or liberal or not.
BRIC is growing fast and raising their voices each time a bit more. Brazil, 10th economical power in the world, made it clear he wanted to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. From these two points, you can deduce that Brazil has its own view on how the world should be run and they would like to show how it could be done. Probably even more after Brazil easily overcome the global crisis despite the international specialists telling them they would be hit severely by the second wave like in a tsunami.
Of course, from an ideal point of view, the argumentation of Mr Rubin seems to be clear and fair. Indeed, if the IAEA responsible to warn U.N. who is wrong in every subject related to nuclear arsenal, then Brazil should listen to it without saying a word. However, it is without taking into account this new necessity to show the world how powerful they could be and even more without taking into account some details of what USA has done these last years.
Indeed, these last years USA has shown several times that he is going alone against International Community. At the U.N. Security Council, it has vetoed a lot more resolutions than any other 4 countries and last time they went to war against Iraq, it was also against what International Community was wishing with some slogans like, "you're with us or you're against us". Worst, it appears they lied and few are really convinced now - I hope none - it was a war against WMD. Guantánamo is of course, by no means a better picture of what USA is capable of. These kind of actions, taken into their context, is of course just throwing discredit to any US diplomat/journalist desiring now to give a lesson of how others countries should react when U.N. reports something. And it appears to me that at a first sight, the article could appear to be fair. But, in fact, I've been in a position of rejecting the whole idea because of these actions taken by USA these last years. And unfortunately for the US diplomacy/journalism, I fear that I'm not alone and that there is probably no quick heal to this situation.
At last, Mr Rubin concludes with "Sometimes even friendly countries must understand that they will pay a price for defying the United States."
The conclusion Mr Robin is so clumsy. This last sentence is just showing the world how USA is aggressive when it comes to disagree with them. Why again playing the pitbull and remember to everyone that USA policy can be "you're with us or against us"? Besides of probably not being the most efficient way of negotiating something, I fear that this kind of strategy is not the one which will accelerate the healing process.
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