I'm John Mesh. This is the New World Report with Professor

Avinellis of U.S. Army War College. We move immediately to a summit, a South American

summit, the news in Al Jazeera, for example. Brazil's Lula de Silva pushes for integration

at South American summit. Professor Lula is now firmly convinced he is the grandfather

of the Americas, good for him. And he's leading peace gestures all over the world. We know

of his offer to arbitrate in the Ukraine conflict, for example. All these are positives, Professor,

and I do not remember or know of Lula de Silva's first two terms in the presidential palace

when he was associated with corruption. Is this a new Lula? How to regard him?

In some ways it's the same Lula, but it's a more dangerous and radicalized version of the

Lula we saw in 2003. And so I think there's two things which are strategically of import

for in my judgment, John. One is we're beginning to see with the convening and the agenda of the

attempt to resurrect Unisur, the community of South American nations that was first established

in 2008. The just the impacts on the region and the United States of the turn to the left.

This convened everyone from Democratic Gabriel Borich to of course bringing Nicholas Maduro

from Venezuela back into Brazil for the first time since I believe 2015. But what it really

also showed is the way in which even though the United States has been relatively successful

in finding ways to relate to these new leftist regimes in terms of social programs and environmentalism,

that the collective will of those regimes and what they're willing to do in conjunction with

extra hemispheric actors like Russia and China is truly disturbing. In that context, Lula as the

convener here, there is that concern when Lula came back into power. After he had been thrown in jail

for a year and a half over what actually were substantiated corruption convictions, but he was led out on

technicality. The question is, okay, would this Lula who is coming in for his really last chance to

...