Let us just say, that while the US nobly led by the Bush Administration “adults” has been winning the war in the Middle East, and overseeing the destruction of Iraq and Lebanon, others have emerged as players in the international energy market. Of course, if the investment in war had, for example, gone to developing alternative technologies that might easily have given rise to a new set of power holders in Washington, and we cannot have that, can we? As it is the backyard, and the Madison doctrine seem to untended, which is probably not the way to honour the Reagan legacy. Two nation states come to mind, if for the moment we leave out the former “model” democracies of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, and they are: Brazil and Venezuela.

Now OPEC is not one of the those international organizations that is controlled - more or less - by the United States, and the Brazilian President, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, wants membership. Speigel Online notes that Brazil has a booming biofuel business alongside growing oil reserves - and who knows whether they trade in dollars or euros. Probably the latter for the moment is more rational, unless the Brazilians hanker after American shopping centres or businesses that would give them a piece of the Washington action. The Spiegel report gives further details:

In 2007, a huge oil reserve was discovered off the coast of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro. The find boosted Brazil’s oil reserves by 40 percent and could catapult the South American nation into the top rank of global producers. In an interview with SPIEGEL President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva said that Brazil wants to join the OPEC oil cartel — a move that could lower petroleum prices worldwide.

Brazil is banking on more than just oil. In the interview, the president emphasizes the country’s economic successes. Of particular note are the huge gains Brazil has made in the production of biofuel (more…), especially environmentally friendly ethanol from sugar cane. By 2025, Brazil hopes to supply its own energy needs entirely with ethanol and produce enough of a surplus to fuel 5 percent of the world. “Our production costs are unbeatable,” Lula said.

And next week, the Chancellor of Germany, who seems to everywhere her country is not included, will be visiting Brazil.

Then there is the Venezuela story. It used to be that if a coup was planned somewhere north of the border, then it happen inevitably according to specifications, south of the Border. Then the people of the southern continent, somehow discovered “people power”. The problem is that there have been a number of “ocular demonstrations”, most notably in 2002 in Caracas. John Pilger recycled the old news footage in War on Democracy (part 3):

It is no easy job running an empire, the necessary murders and massacres are the least of it, because that is what “air power” dominance is about. There are so many things that have to be kept under control, and invasion and long term occupation, when not properly negotiated, lead to a misallocation of resources. The problem, as the British discovered is to keep the folks at home quiet and distracted, and that becomes difficult, even impossible, when the economy does not work as it once did, or might do.

We shall see.

ELSEWHERE:

Tom Phillips of The Guardian writes of Brazil as the country of the future that now seems finally to have arrived.