Foreign Digest: Brazil, Iran and Yemen

Brazil: Supporters of the former far-right Brazilian President, who lost the election last month, took over the Brazilian capitol on January 8, occupying the legislature, high court and other main government buildings. It seemed to have been inspired by the takeover of the United States Capitol, two years and two years before, by supporters of Donald Trump, who baselessly refused to accept his defeat for reelection to the presidency. The supporters of the former Trumpist President of Brazil claim the election results were fraudulent, but there does not appear to be any significant basis for their claims. The new leftwing Brazilian President is justifiably prosecuting the perpetrators of the occupation government facilities, vandalism and assaults on law enforcement, but is making questionable or exaggerated claims. The rioters may have been attempting to engage in an insurrection, as the Government alleges, but more evidence would have to prove their intent, as the legislature was out of session and the President was not in the capitol, unlike in the American example, which many observers have compared it to, in which the Trump supporters attempted to thwart the counting and certification of the votes by Congress of the Electoral College on January 6. 2021. The Trump supporters, who falsely believed Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, succeeded in delaying the constitutional process, in which Trump’s successor was elected. Several hundred Trump-supporting insurrectionists have pleaded guilty or been convicted of crimes ranging from illegally entry of a federal building, destruction of federal property and violence against law enforcement to interference with the proceedings of the federal government and sedition. The role of the former Brazilian President in encouraging the storming of the capitol was less clear than in Trump’s case, as the former was in Florida for medical treatment and had not made inflammatory statements, unlike Trump. Some of his supporters had been blocking roads in Brazil for weeks after the election. The leftist Brazilian President’s claim that the occupiers of the federal capitol were “terrorists” is false. They were attacking government, not innocent civilians to intimidate them to give into their demands, which is the essential element of terrorism. Governments, especially authoritarian ones, dismiss all armed opposition as “terrorism,” thereby diluting the word for an especially evil war crime by equating anti-government militancy with the targeting of innocent civilians. Words like insurrection or sedition are better fits for the typical anti-government violence committed in free countries. Iran and Yemen: United States forces have been intercepting Iranian arms and materiel sent by the terrorist-sponsoring Islamic Republic of Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen. Yemen has been enduring a civil war for several years with multiple factions fighting the government, the Iranian-backed Houthi, and Islamist terrorists, such as al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia leads a coalition of Arab allies against the rebels. Islamist Iran foments revolution across the Islamic world, particularly among Shi’ites, but not limited to them. The U.S. recognizes Iran’s machinations in Yemen as destabilizing.