The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

That picture — a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam — is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there’s no cost in lining up with America’s enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement. ~Charles Krauthammer

This prompts a laugh from Greg Scoblete. It is admittedly pretty amusing that Krauthammer expects us to believe that Turkey and Brazil are continuing to pursue the increasingly independent foreign policies they have pursued for seven or eight years because of things Obama did or did not do. Had Obama taken a harder line with all authoritarian states, changed nothing from the practices of the Bush administration, pursued a purely confrontational approach with Iran, and given speeches celebrating American hegemony, Turkey and Brazil or some other interested rising powers would have taken the initiative to insert themselves into negotiations with Iran. These states have their own interests and agendas that they are going to pursue whether or not Washington approves of them, and they will pursue them regardless of how confrontational or accommodating any particular administration is.

Iran has many trading partners that are interested in improving their relations with Iran’s government, and much of the rest of the world does not believe Iran’s nuclear program is a major threat, so it was a matter of time before our obsession with this issue would generate dissatisfaction and action from other states. Had Obama continued every Bush policy and conducted himself in the same way, he would not have delayed this from happening, and instead might have made sure that it happened almost immediately after he took office. Hegemonists believe that an assertive, aggressive U.S. abroad helps to guarantee global stability and peace. Even though I think this is mistaken in important ways, there is an even greater flaw in hegemonists’ thinking, which is the assumption that U.S. allies and non-aligned states must see these things in more or less the same way that the hegemonists do. If Turkey and Brazil try to prevent Iran from being sanctioned, the only way hegemonists can see this is as an expression of anti-American rebellion. It does not seem to occur to them that Turkey and Brazil want to preserve peace and stability in the region and simply have no confidence in going the sanctions route, which they and everyone else have seen fail time after time in numerous cases.

Turkey has been building strong ties with Iran for several years, and this rapprochement predates Obama’s time in office. Turkey has important energy interests in Iran, and wants to find a way to resolve the nuclear issue without sanctions. The Turkish government was fiercely opposed to the Iraq war, and they are likewise opposed to any confrontational policy towards Iran that could lead to another conflict. They obviously have a vested interest in stability on their borders. The Iraq war was responsible for alienating a lot of Turks from the United States and allowing Erdogan to pursue a more assertive and independent course. Brazil has been becoming a regional power with its own foreign policy agenda for some time, and Brazil is becoming more active internationally now that Lula is nearing the end of his term. Riding high at home, Lula has been taking steps in recent years to raise Brazils’ profile internationally, and this nuclear deal with Iran is just one of those efforts. Turkey and Brazil are emerging as significant powers in their own right, which would have happened regardless of what any administration following Bush did or didn’t do. Washington needs to learn how to cope with this without slapping them down and trying to humiliate them.