Thread by @OliverStuenkel

President Bolsonaro is considering naming Admiral Flávio Rocha as Foreign Minister. Irrespective of the man's qualifications, the move would probably taint the armed forces' reputation further. For several reasons, the job looks like a trap and a mission impossible 🧵👇

First of all, it is Bolsonaro himself and his son Eduardo who really make the key decisions in the realm of foreign policy. Araújo never called the shots. Even a 'normal' Foreign Minister will struggle having to constantly defend the indefensible to international interlocutors.

The same has happened before: 1) Brazil's former Minister of Health, general Pazuello, oversaw the number of COVID-19 victims in Brazil explode from 15 to over 280 thousand. Bolsonaro made Pazuello preside over a disaster of epic proportions.

While Pazuello was also tragically incompetent and may be prosecuted, he also walked into a trap: if he had been a competent administrator willing to defend lockdowns and denounce bogus medicines, Bolsonaro would have fired him after a few weeks in office.

2) By asking Vice President Mourão, another general, to preside over the Amazon Council, Bolsonaro created another big headache for the armed forces: they were tasked with fixing the unfixable, a mission impossible that predictably led to further deterioration of their reputation

That was bc Bolsonaro has no intention whatsoever to reduce deforestation. It's not even a matter of personal preference, but of political survival: loggers and squatters are part of his winning coalition, & facilitating deforestation was one of Bolsonaro's key campaign promises

Mourão thus walked into a trap. Just like last year, when he was tasked with fixing Brazil-China ties. In Beijing, he promised Xi Jinping Brazil's gov would stop promoting sinophobia, only to be backstabbed by Bolsonaro's son. Mourão's standing in Beijing suffered accordingly.

Mourão's reputation in Europe, where he was seen as relatively rational, is no longer the same. He is closely associated to the armed forces' spectacular failure to reduce deforestation in the Amazon.

Finally, an admiral as foreign minister would only reinforce the international perception abroad that Brazil is essentially led by a military government. While Araújo's successor could do some damage control, whoever will take the job will probably emerge diminished from it.