It all started so optimistically for Brazil's peacekeeping mission in Haiti. Back in June, a grateful population welcomed the troops. Brazil's soccer superstars showed up to play a special "peace game" and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the blighted Caribbean country to spread his brand of good cheer. The mission would show that Brazil was ready to assume a role as a regional diplomatic power with a more socially aware approach than the heavy-handed United States.
It is turning out to be more complicated than that.
Armed factions in Haiti have grown more violent and clashes between peacekeepers and Haitians have raised the risk that people will turn against the foreign troops.
Haiti's infrastructure is in ruins and promised helpings of international aid are slow to appear, exacerbating tensions.
In Brazil, critics say the venture could become Lula's first foreign policy mistake.
"Haiti is a quagmire. I think that Brazil should find a way out," said Ivan Valente, a congressman in Lula's ruling Workers Party who opposed the deployment.
The Brazilians arrived to lead the UN mission in June, following a rebellion that forced elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile in February. An interim government has promised elections by the end of this year.
The military deployment was Brazil's largest since World War Two. It was part of a foreign policy drive by Lula that would give the South American giant an international influence which matched its size - and boost its bid for a permanent seat on a revamped UN Security Council.