www.commondreams.org/views04/0102-04.htm
As a close presidential election comes dow n to the wire, one issue dominates: the threat of weapons of mass destru ction in . The president's political guru, Karl Rove, will be desperate to find a wi nning issue. With US soldiers still dying and no WMD found, Iraq will be too embarrassing. The economy may be reviving, but stalled job growth will be embarrassing, too. The gay marriage issue threatens to tear the Republicans apart and hurt them more than it can help. Some other issue will have to be found to divert public attention. It signed the Nucle ar Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and has permitted limited inspection of its nuclear facilities. However, Brazil's president Lula da Silva has c riticized the NPT because it favors countries that already have nuclear weapons. When Lula took office last January, his minister of science and technology, Roberto Amaral, suggested that Brazil should acquire the ca pacity to produce a nuclear weapon. But last week Brazil announced that in a few months it will start produci ng enriched uranium, which means it will be able to make nuclear weapons on relatively short notice. And it says it won't allow international in spectors to make unannounced spot inspections of its enrichment plant. Next October, Bush and Rove may find it very convenient to make that question dominate the campaign. Or perhaps it will be the Democratic challenger who raises the question. Whoever he is, he will have to prove that he is tougher than the incumbe nt on stopping bad guys from getting WMD He will have to find a target to aim at, a new threat that the Bushies are supposedly ignoring. The Democratic contenders who are currently doing best in the polls all h old foreign policies principles pretty much like Bush's. They, too, divi de the world up into good guys, who are allowed to have nukes, and bad g uys who are not. He told the New York Times that Brazil has no need to allow spot inspections. "All we've got are a couple of it ty-bitty reactors," he said. And Brazil is a peaceful member of the inte rnational community. "We're not interested in a bomb and we've never mad e a bomb or ordered it used in a war, so we have the moral and ethical a uthority to talk about this subject." In other words, don't treat Brazil like the axis of evil. Yes, they should, i n the opinion of James Goodby, a former arms control negotiator in the C linton administration. "Similar programs in Libya, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea have rightly been seen as either direct or indirect threats to in ternational peace and security," he explained in the International Heral d Tribune. "Unlike Brazil, they harbor hostile intent toward the United States," and Bush is right to make them stop. But Brazil "presents the c ase of an undoubtedly friendly nation." Brazil would never use the weapo ns, Goodby concludes: "Brazil's nuclear aspirations lie in the fields of economics and status." However, Democrats can be just as quick as Republicans to turn yesterday' s friend into today's enemy. And mainstream Democrats have just as much reason as Republicans to take aim at Brazil. Brazil is not just a random target of political convenience. He is leading a major attack on hypocritica l American trade policies, which allow the US to protect its own indus tries while denying smaller nations like Brazil the same privilege. He i s also resisting some efforts by the IMF and World Bank to dictate his n ation's economic policies, and he is urging leaders of other nations to do the same. He's doing it all in a smart, effective way that has US l eaders worried. Some observers suggest that IMF and World Bank restrictions have prevente d Brazil from moving ahead on its nuclear program. By announcing that Br azil will produce enriched uranium, Lula was declaring his independence and thumbing his nose at those globalization agencies and at the US It 's no longer so clear that Brazil is undoubtedly friendly. This is a development that would worry a future Democratic president just as much as a second-term George W If Lula gets the bomb, there is no t elling how it might raise his international profile and bolster his bid to lead an independent global bloc of developing countries. Why, he migh t even have to be declared a "rogue" or an "international outlaw." Then his recent trip to Cuba, and Brazil's links to Saddam Hussein's nuclear program in the 1980s, would suddenly become big news. So would the fact that Brazil has the world's sixth-largest known deposits of uranium and the largest known deposits of thorium. It would be easy enough for the c andidates next fall to agree that Brazil is our new Enemy Number One. First, it shows clearly how the US government separates the good guys f rom the bad guys. If you play economic ball with the US and the develo ped nations, then you are a civilized member of the community of nations . So you can have WMD It may be a bit more complica ted than that. It works the same way, no matter who is in the White House. Second, the case of Brazil shows how US leaders create public fears out of their own private fears. They are genuinely afraid that Lula might g alvanize international opposition to their vision of a globalized libera l internationalist utopia. If they decide to tell us all to be afraid of Brazil, they won't tell us what they are afraid of. They will try to play the same trick on us that they played during the Iraq war. And we have to know why wh at they see as danger-Lula and all that he represents, with no nukes-is really an opportunity for a better life in Brazil and around the world.
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