Brazil joins Latin America’s dictatorships in siding with Iran over Israel | Opinion
No one’s shocked to see the dictatorships of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua lining up behind Iran’s repressive theocracy in its standoff with Israel. But Brazil — South America’s giant — striking a similar note is sparking outrage in Western diplomatic circles.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government issued a statement on June 13, hours after the conflict started, expressing its “firm condemnation” of Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But the Brazilian foreign ministry statement didn’t condemn Iran’s missile attacks on Israel, its repeated vows to “eliminate” Israel, or its history of supporting terrorist groups. Iran has financially supported Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Gaza-based Hamas organization, which invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 civilians and taking 251 others hostage.
Brazil’s position on the Israel-Iran conflict stands in stark contrast with that of all major Western democracies.
The leaders of the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan signed a joint pro-Israel statement at the G-7 summit in Alberta, Canada, on June 16. In it, they said that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and that “Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror.”
The G-7 statement added that “we have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” Shortly before Israel’s attack, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had warned that Iran has been secretly enriching uranium to 60% purity — just short of the 90% required for nuclear weapons.
If you are not following Iran’s political history closely, you may be asking yourself: Why doesn’t Iran have the right to produce nuclear weapons as India, Pakistan and several other countries have done?
The answer is very simple: because Iran is publicly vowing to annihilate another sovereign country — Israel — that has been recognized by the United Nations since 1948. Few countries would stand idly by if a nearby nation vowed to erase it from the face of the earth and was close to acquiring a nuclear bomb.
Over the years, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” In a 2020 speech, he called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed,” according to the Associated Press.
It’s not just Iran’s rhetoric that’s frightening, but its actions. In addition to sponsoring terrorist attacks by its proxies against Israel, Iran was behind the Hezbollah 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which left 85 people dead, according to Argentina’s government.
Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. special representative for Iran and Venezuela in the first Trump administration, told me that “it is shocking” to see a major democracy like Brazil lending its diplomatic support to Iran.
“It suggests that Brazilian officials have not read the IAEA report about Iran’s violations of international agreements and its efforts to move toward a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Abrams said this may be “an anachronistic effort by Lula to bring back memories of the non-aligned movement. But this is 2025, not 1975”. He added, “Brazil will not gain anything in the Arab world with this statement. It will make the Ayatollah happy, but what good does that do to Brazil?”
Lula, who currently chairs the BRICS group of emerging powers led by Russia, China, India, South Africa and Iran, may be trying to raise his international profile as he prepares to host the bloc’s summit in Rio de Janeiro from July 6-7. But many Latin American officials and academics say the Brazilian president may be shooting himself in the foot. Brazil, and Latin America in general, are minor players in world affairs, and Lula’s posturing may do his country more harm than good, they say.
Andres Velasco, dean of the London School of Economics’ School of Public Policy and a former finance minister of Chile, told me that the Brazilian president’s flirtations with China, Russia, Iran and the BRICS “are very bad policy” amid President Trump’s global tariff wars.
“I was truly embarrassed to see President Lula recently applauding the parade of missiles on their way to killing Ukrainians at Moscow’s Red Square,” Velasco said.
Referring to Trump’s possible reaction, Velasco added that “these kinds of things put Latin America in the spotlight at a time when things are so heated that they invite (U.S.) retaliations. The best thing a country like Brazil could do would be to draw as little attention as possible.”
Indeed, the support for Iran from Lula and much of Latin America’s old-guard left is preposterous.
Iran is not only a Jurassic dictatorship that puts women in jail for not covering their heads with a hijab in public and executes people for being gay. It is also a major a global sponsor of terrorism. If Iran is allowed to have a nuclear bomb, it will become much more of a global threat than it already is.
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