Center for a New American Security

Sometimes you get the rare opportunity to read something that is not only extremely interesting, and relevant to national security, but also makes you laugh. Such was the case yesterday when I came across this Foreign Policy article which discussed how Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just can’t wait to lay some sugar on his new world power BFF, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Well, more accurately, a sugar-based product: ethanol. But the possibility to make childish jokes, masking the true urgency of the issue, was too much to resist, as FP guest writer Gal Luft and now I have just proven. . . hence the photo choice.

In the true spirit of Friday’s post, I won’t overburden you with an in depth analysis of the security implications this relationship could hold for the United States (there’s the original article for that), but what I will do is hit you with an abbreviated synopsis of why this is no laughing matter.

U.S. sanctions against Iran, which are working their way through Congress, take aim at Iran’s Achilles’ heel: its energy needs and inability to domestically refine oil from its own massive deposits. Brazilian ethanol could prove to not only be a means by which Iran could brave the sanction storm, but also give it the time it needs to bulk up domestic production capabilities.

In short, if Brazil were to become Iran’s sugar daddy, the United States may find that Achilles just got a hold of some serious Doc Martens, leaving nothing to aim at, and certainly nothing to laugh about.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Agência Brasil.