Full Text of Obama's Letter to Lula on Iran Nuclear Deal

In case you somehow managed to miss the background here; Brazil and Turkey reached a deal with Iran on a nuclear swap, declared victory, only to have the US criticize both the deal and the effort. Then followed a barrage of articles from supposed experts saying how Lula has tarnished his legacy and is coddling dictators. So, understandably pissed, Brazil leaked excerpts of a letter Obama had sent to Lula weeks before the deal that suggested all the major accomplishments of the Brazil/Turkey deal (widely ignored in the US press). But what was really in this mysterious letter? Well, here it is, click it to get a larger view, or click here to view original. Bottom line: Brazil wins and the US needs a towel to get the egg out their eyes.





(h/t to Toma Rosa Bueno who posted a link to a facsimile copy of the original letter in the comments section of Robert Naiman's Huff Post smackdown of Friedman that maladjusted linked to yesterday)

Thomas Friedman SmackDown

I'm down anytime someone lays the smackdown to Friedman, but this is exceptional, and follows an exceptionally heinous op-ed this morning. Thank god for FAIR:

Thomas Friedman is upset in his New York Times column today (5/26/10) because Brazilian President Lula da Silva negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran. Asks Friedman, "Is there anything uglier than watching democrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying, vote-stealing Iranian thug just to tweak the U.S. and show that they, too, can play at the big power table?" And he answers himself: "No, that's about as ugly as it gets."

Friedman quotes a source complaining that Iran had just executed "political prisoners who were tortured into confessions," but "didn't mention a word about human rights." Friedman presumably is aware that the U.S., too, has prisoners that it has tortured into confessions, and that it maintains the right to execute such captives. Should Lula have said a word about those human rights issues as well, or would that just be an attempt to "tweak the U.S."?

Friedman has another expert who accuses Lula of "the thwarting of democracy across Latin America." Friedman's evidence: "He regularly praises Venezuela’s strongman Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator...while denouncing Colombia, one of the great democratic success stories, because it let U.S. planes use Colombian airfields to fight narco-traffickers."

Please do click through and read the whole thing, the take town of Colombia as "one of the great democratic success stories" is priceless.

Also, for a more detailed, longer take down, see Robert Naiman in the Huffington Post. You want to see "ugly as it gets", watch this video of Friedman defending the Iraq War. Suck. On. This. Friedman.