When the U.S. was attacked by Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, Brazil’s president at the time, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, immediately invoked the Rio Treaty – a pillar of the Inter-American system upon which the Organization of American States was founded. It has a simple and important premise: if any member country in the Americas is attacked militarily by an outside force, that constitutes an attack on all member states. Brazil stood firmly by the United States after the 9/11 attacks. But times have changed. President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim is now attempting to remove...