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to share its experiences of securing urban territories and bringing them under statecontrol, which became a major component of MINUSTAH’s mandate.A close examination of Brazil’s recent history in peacekeeping operations and othersimilar international engagements reveals a number of domestic factors that haveenabled a more ‘muscular’ foreign policy, albeit only with tangible results evident inthe Haiti case. Haiti represented the consonance of interests of two major actors inthe deployment: Itamaraty and the military. 677 Indeed, this was the key to action,that key sectors of Brazil’s foreign policy community and the military – still a majorplayer in this arena – agreed on the importance and utility of Brazil’s engagementand leading role in MINUSTAH. PT’s only say in the matter as a political partywould be voiced through its representatives in Congress. Its leadership, Lula, Garciaand Dirceu, meanwhile, held the monopoly on what would be considered actions of‘solidarity’ conducted by Brazil.Meanwhile, from the broader left the argument was made that Brazil’s leadership ofMINUSTAH was a big mistake. The engagement was attacked on various fronts:that it was a military engagement was an odious development for Brazil’s leftistintelligentsia, which had itself been victimised in the past by the country’s military;the fact that Brazil was underwriting an un-elected government, which had takenthe place of an elected, if flawed, government; as well as the idea of intervening inthe domestic affairs of a fellow Latin American state, when Lula had been electedon the platform of defending sovereignty and the right to self-determination. 678While leftist sections of PT, such as Valter Pomar’s Red Hope Faction (A Esperançaé Vermelha) did not oppose involvement overall, military engagement was criticised.According to Pomar, when asked by the largest-circulation daily Folha de São Paulo,how he saw Brazil’s presence in Haiti:677 See also The Economist. 2010. “Brazil and peacekeeping: Policy, not altruism”, 23September, 2010. Accessed online at: http://www.economist.com/node/17095626 on 7December, 2010.678 Verena Glass, “Brasil no Haiti será laranja dos EUA, dizem ativistas”, in Carta Maior,2004, Accessed online at: http://www.rebelion.org/hemeroteca/brasil/040519glass.htmon 5 December, 2010.262