The first message of Brazil and Turkey is that there is no team, there is no consensus, and a great many countries and peoples around the world do not like the kind of world that America is trying to make. President Obama can be polite and considerate (as when he made a speech in Istanbul to reach out to the Islamic world) or he can be abrasive and rude (as when he flew to Copenhagen in the failed attempt to deprive Lula of the honor of hosting South America’s first Olympic games) but it doesn’t make much difference. Brazil and Turkey believe they have interests and goals which require the frustration of President Obama’s plans and they have no hesitation in acting to thwart him. It is actually an enormous form of American vanity to assume that what we want is so right, so good for everyone and so manifestly the best possible road forward that the world will willingly follow our lead.

But if Brazil and Turkey torpedo one of Obama’s core ideas, they are also living contradictions of President Bush’s belief that the advance of democracy in the developing world would advance America’s foreign policy interests. In both countries it is forces newly empowered by democracy that are opposing the American attempt to stop the Iranian nuclear program. If the old elites were still securely in place, Turkey and Brazil would be less difficult and more predictable players on the international stage. As countries become more democratic, they become more responsive to cultural and economic interests that resent the world’s power structure and seek ways to change it. It is possibly true that after a period of settling down and trial and error democratic publics will make shrewder choices, but this can take decades and generations. One must also note that democracies do not always side with democracies against dictators; democracy is not a magic bullet that will give the present generation of policymakers a quieter life…

This means that President Obama is going to have to use power to get his way rather than relying on sweet reason and the power of his ideals. He’s going to have to persuade countries that going along with the United States is better than defying us, and to do that he’s going to have to think about how to make people pay when they make the wrong choice. Otherwise his great ideals will not come to fruition. He can kiss non-proliferation goodbye, for starters, if he can’t stop Iran from getting the bomb.