By Kenneth Maxwell
Brazilian foreign policy has long prided itself on a distinct grammar: sovereignty, non‑intervention, dialogue with adversaries, and strategic autonomy rather than bloc alignment. Layered on top of that diplomatic tradition, especially within the Brazilian left, sits a powerful anti‑imperialist political culture that reads world politics primarily through the lens of resistance to hegemonic power, above all that of the United States.
When these two traditions converge, they generate a recurring pattern: Western states are judged directly in moral and legal terms, while non‑Western challengers to the Western order are buffered by the language of sovereignty, anti‑hegemony, and multipolarity. The result is a structured asymmetry that has become increasingly visible in Brazilian debates over Iran, Russia, and Brazil’s role within BRICS and the wider “Global South.”
This article explores that asymmetry and its consequences. It begins by reconstructing the dual inheritance, anti‑imperialist political culture and sovereignty‑centric diplomacy, and then traces how it shapes Brazilian responses to Iran’s theocratic repression and Russia’s war in Ukraine. It then connects these cases to Brazil’s self‑presentation in BRICS as a bridge between North and South and assesses the strategic risks and internal tensions this stance creates. Finally, it considers how Brazilian diplomats defend this posture, and what is at stake for Brazil’s long‑term credibility as a “normative” middle power.
Anti‑Imperialist Culture Meets Sovereigntist Diplomacy
The first pillar of the pattern is an anti‑imperialist political culture that organizes international conflict around opposition to hegemony. In this worldview, the core divide in global politics is not between democracies and autocracies, or between liberal and illiberal regimes, but between dominant and subordinate states. The United States, NATO, and the broader “West” figure as the principal carriers of a hierarchical international order, actors who resist or complicate this order are often read, at least partially, as part of a camp of resistance. It is a lens shaped by the history of the Cold War, U.S.. interventions in Latin America, and enduring inequalities in global economic governance.
The second pillar is a Brazilian diplomatic tradition that prizes sovereignty, non‑intervention, and engagement with adversarial regimes. Brazilian diplomacy has historically resisted sanctions, regime‑change projects, and ideological crusades. It emphasizes multilateralism, dialogue, and legal equality of states. This tradition is rooted in Brazil’s own experience as a large but historically peripheral power, which gained autonomy not through military alliances but through careful, law‑infused diplomacy and niche leadership in multilateral forums.
Individually, each tradition is intelligible. Anti‑imperialist suspicion of Western power reflects real historical grievances. Sovereignty‑heavy diplomacy captures the constraints and opportunities of a non‑nuclear middle power in a system long dominated by others. The issue arises in the way they combine: together, they produce a framework in which the central question about a foreign state is often less “what is this regime at home?” than “where does this state sit in relation to U.S. and Western power?”
States opposed to Washington or Israel can thereby gain a presumption of indulgence, or at least a more forgiving interpretive frame, while Western actors face more direct ethical and legal scrutiny.
Iran as Anti‑Western Node, Not Theocratic Regime
The recent Brazilian debate over Iran illustrates the dynamic in a relatively pure form. When sectors of the Brazilian left respond to Iran’s repression or regional adventurism, the first move is often to reframe the issue away from regime type and domestic coercion and toward geopolitics: Iran as a target of U.S. sanctions, as an adversary of Israel, and as a pole within a contested regional order. Support for Palestine which is broad and intelligible across much of Latin America can gradually slide into a more accommodating posture toward Tehran. What begins as solidarity with a dispossessed people can, without much explicit argument, become rhetorical protection for a state that presents itself as part of the anti‑Western front.
At the radical end of the spectrum, some groups openly minimize the nature of the Iranian regime. They question whether Iran should even be described as a genuine theocracy, present its repressive practices as an almost natural by‑product of external pressure or internal disorder, or simply deflect discussions of domestic repression onto U.S. or Israeli behavior. In these circles, regime character is relativized: whatever one thinks of Iran’s internal order, the “main enemy” is Western hegemony, and it is that hierarchy which must structure analysis and priority of critique.
Elsewhere on the left, the mechanism is more indirect but no less consequential. Sectors of the Workers’ Party (PT), the Communist Party, and the landless movement (MST) do not openly defend the Iranian regime. Instead, they shift the frame. Rather than address Iran’s domestic order, its limited pluralism, its religious hierarchy, its coercive apparatus, they emphasize sovereignty, non‑intervention, and the right of Iranians alone to decide their future. They talk about sanctions, selective outrage, and Western double standards. They highlight imperialism, Zionism, and the broader regional confrontation, leaving the internal character of the Iranian state largely unexamined.
The upshot is a marked asymmetry. U.S. and Israeli actions are judged in direct moral, legal, and strategic terms. Iranian conduct, by contrast, is more often contextualized and relativized. Even where criticism of Tehran exists, it is typically qualified or treated as secondary to the larger story of Western aggression and hypocrisy. The more weight that anti‑imperialist and sovereignist frames carry, the less space there is for clear, unbuffered judgment of Iran’s domestic regime and its external behavior on their own terms.
Russia, Multipolarity, and the Ukraine War
With Russia, the dual tradition expresses itself differently, because the structure of the crisis is different and the domestic regime question is harder to ignore. Yet the same asymmetry is visible. Brazil has formally condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in multilateral forums, reaffirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and defended the UN Charter. It has not sided with Moscow’s narrative of the war as a justifiable “special military operation.” On paper, this is a clear stand.
In practice, however, both the Brazilian state and much of the Brazilian left quickly reframe the conflict in terms of NATO expansion, U.S. hegemony, and the imperative of multipolarity. Instead of a war of imperial conquest by a stronger neighbor against a weaker one, the conflict is narrated as a proxy war, a manifestation of Western refusal to accommodate Russia’s security concerns, or a symptom of the dangers of a unipolar order. Russia becomes, in this telling, not so much an imperial aggressor as a problematic but necessary pole in a more balanced, multipolar system. Critique of Moscow’s actions exists, but the strongest language is often reserved for Western policy: enlargement, sanctions, and what is portrayed as an effort to sustain Western dominance under the guise of defending rules and norms.
The sovereigntist diplomatic tradition then supplies the operational posture. Brazil refuses to join Western economic sanctions. It opposes military aid frameworks that would place it firmly in the Western camp. It insists on “neutrality,” on dialogue with all parties, and on its potential role as mediator. Fertilizer dependence and BRICS ties are invoked as practical constraints. The language is that of autonomy, non‑alignment, and peace‑brokering. Yet the effect is that Russia faces limited practical consequences in its relations with Brazil, despite Brazil’s formal condemnation.
Within the Brazilian left, one finds the same gradation observed in the Iran debate. A radical fringe openly valorizes Vladimir Putin as a symbol of resistance to U.S. and NATO power. A broader left condemns the war in the abstract but devotes the bulk of its rhetorical energy to attacking Western hypocrisy and the alleged militarization of the conflict by the United States and Europe. The governing center‑left tries to maintain a middle line, balancing legal condemnation with strategic non‑alignment. As in the Iranian case, the central pattern is that Western actors are judged in direct ethical and strategic terms, while a non‑Western challenger is partly shielded by the registers of anti‑hegemony and sovereignty.
BRICS, Global South Leadership, and the Politics of Asymmetry
These case‑specific asymmetries feed directly into Brazil’s role in BRICS and its claims to speak for the Global South. Brasília presents BRICS as an instrument for democratizing global governance, not as an anti‑Western bloc. It frames its participation as part of a long lineage running from the Bandung Conference to the Non‑Aligned Movement: neither West nor East, but a coalition of states seeking a more plural, multipolar, and equitable order.
In this narrative, the softening of criticism toward partners such as Russia and Iran is not an embarrassment but a strategic necessity. Brazil must keep open channels with Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran if it is to position itself as a bridge between North and South. Too sharp a public break over Ukraine, human rights, or regional interventions would, the argument goes, push these partners closer together under a more openly anti‑Western banner and deprive Brazil of influence. The language of sovereignty, dialogue, and anti‑hegemony thus functions as diplomatic glue, allowing Brazil to remain in good standing within BRICS while still claiming adherence to the UN Charter, human rights, and democratic values in its rhetoric toward Europe and the United States.
This balancing act underwrites Lula’s self‑image as mediator and spokesperson of the Global South. He portrays Brazil as uniquely placed to “talk to everyone”: to Washington, Brussels, Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and the Arab world. BRICS is framed as a channel for dialogue in a polarized landscape, not as a revisionist alliance. Brazil’s insistence that it will not “take sides” in a new Cold War is meant to signal to the Global South that it will not simply relay Western threat perceptions or policy instruments, especially sanctions.
But the very asymmetry that makes this bridging role possible also generates strategic risks. One is credibility. If Brazil repeatedly invokes sovereignty and anti‑imperialism to soften critique of its non‑Western partners, while applying much more direct ethical language to Western actions, observers can reasonably question whether its normative commitments are substantive or selective. Another risk is reputational spillover. As Russia, Iran, or other BRICS members deepen domestic repression or external aggression, Brazil’s reluctance to draw sharper lines risks tying it to projects it claims not to endorse, complicating its aspiration to lead a “responsible” Global South rather than a merely anti‑Western one.
Domestic Contestation and the Future of the Pattern
This foreign‑policy pattern is not just an external phenomenon. It is also a terrain of domestic political contestation. In recent years, as wars and regional crises involving Russia, Iran, and China have become more salient, the Brazilian right has sharpened its critiques. Parts of the right have moved toward a more openly pro‑Israel, Atlanticist orientation. For them, the left’s asymmetric stance is easily framed as moral relativism or complicity with authoritarianism dressed up as anti‑imperialism. They argue that Brazil’s credibility as a democracy is undermined when its leaders appear faster to condemn Western allies than autocratic partners.
These attacks tap into a broader polarization in Brazilian politics, where foreign policy has become another marker of identity and culture‑war alignment. The more the left leans into a rhetoric of anti‑hegemony and sovereignty to justify its partnerships, the more space it opens for the right to present itself as the defender of “Western civilization,” Israel, and liberal values, even if, in practice, many right‑wing leaders have little interest in multilateralism or human rights. In other words, the asymmetry that structures external relations also structures internal battles over Brazil’s geopolitical identity.
Looking ahead, much will depend on whether Brazilian elites across the spectrum can articulate a more consistent set of criteria for judging partners and adversaries.
One option is to double down on the existing pattern, accepting the charge of asymmetry as the inevitable price of being a middle power in a fractured world. On this view, Brazil cannot afford moral symmetry. It must prioritize autonomy, trade, and room for maneuver over principled consistency.
Another option is to recalibrate, for example by developing a clearer language of “minimum norms” that apply to all, while still resisting sanctions or regime‑change agendas. That would not erase asymmetry, but it might narrow its gap.
For now, Brazil sits in a structurally ambiguous position. Its foreign policy draws on a proud anti‑imperialist tradition and a deeply rooted commitment to sovereignty and dialogue. Those traditions have real virtues in an era of renewed great‑power confrontation.
Yet when combined in the way they are currently practiced, they also produce recurrent blind spots: indulgence toward non‑Western challengers, sharper moralizing toward Western actors, and a persistent difficulty in naming the domestic orders and external behaviors of partners like Iran and Russia for what they are.
Whether Brazil can refine this posture into something more normatively coherent without sacrificing the autonomy and bridge‑building role it rightly prizes will be one of the central tests of its diplomacy in the emerging multipolar order.
Note: This article was stimulated by Felipe Krause’s excellent post on Linkedin on March 15, 2026.