McCain: Brazil could replace Russia in G8

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain gave a major foreign policy speech last week. Though most of the attention was placed on tensions in the Middle East and U.S. military deployment in Iraq, McCain criticized Russia’s government and threatened them by using Brazil:

But it was his stab at India's old ally Russia, a country with which the Bush administration forged a close partnership in the beginning, that surprised analysts. Warning against the dangers posed by a ''revanchist'' Russia, McCain said the US should ensure that the G8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia, he said.

Perhaps McCain has understood the increased importance of Brazil in global trade like in Doha round negotiations. Then again, maybe he was just nostalgic of a brief tryst he had with a Brazilian model some fifty years ago.

Sources- Wonkette, The Latin Americanist, International Herald Tribune, Times of India, Reuters India

Image- Al Jazeera