Great, We've Ticked Off Another Rising Democracy

It used to be that the US would take an annual drubbing from Iran during presidential speeches before the UN General Assembly. Not so this year. Instead, that drubbing came from Brazil in what the Guardian describes as a "scathing speech" from Dilma Rousseff, who called out the NSA over its spying on her country. Given the allegations—eavesdropping on Rousseff's own communications, along with those of presidential aides, ordinary civilians, and even the state oil company—it's tough to blame her. And once again, writes Daniel Kurtz-Phelan at Time, the US has managed to enrage an emerging democracy.

"It has become a cliché of American diplomacy: The United States welcomes the rise of new powers and wants them to continue rising—especially when those new powers are democracies," he writes. And then the US does something to reinforce the notion of "Yankees being up to no good." We want these rising nations to be our partners to create a world with the "best characteristics of American-led liberal order," he writes. "If not Brazil, if not India, if not South Africa, who will join us in working to sustain it?" Click for Kurtz-Phelan's full column. (More Brazil stories.)