(Photo Credit: International Monetary Fund Photograph/Stephen Jaffe)
This post is cross-posted at The Race for Iran.
Over at the National Interest, Nikolas K. Gvosdev has a piece on the “BRIC Wall” that is developing in opposition to many U.S. policies, particularly the U.S. drive for further sanctions on Iran.
As Secretary Clinton’s unsuccessful visit to Brasilia last week along with recent statements by Turkish officials indicate, the world’s rising powers – even those that are democracies – are lining up to oppose U.S. policies that they view as overly confrontational, destabilizing, and threatening to their economic interests.
According to Gvosdev’s analysis, the proper analytic distinction is not between democracies and non-democracies, but between established status-quo powers supportive of (American) intervention and emerging nations more keen to support a stricter definition of state sovereignty.
From Gvosdev’s piece:
Two years ago, Washington was abuzz once again with the prospects for a “League of Democracies” that would support U.S. global leadership. But in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated Burma/Myanmar, a very clear rift opened up between the democracies of the advanced north and west, which advocated an intervention on humanitarian grounds, and the democracies of the south and east, which proved to be far more receptive to China’s call for defending state sovereignty. In the Doha round of trade talks and in the ongoing climate change negotiations, the leading democracies of the south and east–Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, India and Indonesia among them–have tended to line up with Beijing instead of joining Washington’s banner.
The lonely U.S. drive for sanctions on Iran is highlighting these divisions, starkly delineating the limits of American power and laying bare the inefficacy of Washington’s anachronistic approach to foreign policy.
— Ben Katcher
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