The IAEA: From Bad To Worse

posted at 8:45 am on October 5, 2009 by Track-A-'Crat
[ Nuclear Proliferation ]    printer-friendly

No sooner than a leaked IAEA report – anemically entitled “Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program” – states that Iran has “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” nuclear weapon, does the outgoing head of the IAEA then conversely announce that “Israel is [the] number one threat to [the] Middle East.“

Nothing can be more revealing as to the dysfunction, inadequacy and impotence of the IAEA.

The efforts of the international community over the past six years have amounted to precisely nothing.  The Bush administration ceded leadership of this issue to the EU3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom), in a bid to bolster its multi-lateral credentials and in the vain hope that Iran would perhaps respond more favorably to negotiations led by powers other than the US.  Iran must have been overjoyed that it has only had to deal with the appeasing former powers of Europe, while Russia and China prevent the Security Council from taking any meaningful steps whatsoever.  For Russia, this was due to its trade and military ties with Iran, not to mention the antiquated Cold War mentality that anything that diminishes the US benefits Mother Russia, while China has maintained its strict policy of militant non-interference in the domestic affairs of other nation-states, no matter what.

As culpable as Russia and China in allowing Iran all the time that it needs to advance its nuclear weapons program, however, is Dr. ElBaradei.

This man should never have been permitted to assume leadership of the IAEA, which has racked up nothing but successive failures under his charge.  Libya surrendered its WMD program – of which the IAEA was entirely oblivious – only after becoming incontinent with fear following the shock and awe of Afghanistan and Iraq.  Libya’s capitulation quickly led to the discovery of A. Q. Khan’s nuclear black-market, another development about which the IAEA knew diddly squat, and, in North Korea, the IAEA was comprehensively sidelined by the Six-Party Talks.  Perhaps most damning of all, the IAEA had not the slightest inkling of Iran’s 20-year history of clandestine nuclear tinkering, until its very public exposure in 2002.

This, of course, is all in addition to ElBaradei’s legendary ability to grasp the wrong end of the stick by repeatedly praising Iranian non-cooperation and singling out Israel for criticism, as well as his frequent dispensation of invaluable advice, such as:

We have to cross our fingers that nothing will happen.

Thanks, Doc.

When Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons, they should build a monument to ElBaradei.  The only, admittedly very small, consolation now is that the good doctor will be replaced in December by Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano (although this change in public facade will nevertheless leave the IAEA as toothless as ever).

One final, disturbing thought to leave you with: we have been led to believe that the level of technological knowledge and sophistication needed to design functioning nuclear weapons is such that they are virtually unattainable to those countries that can be least trusted with them.  Proliferation has already undermined this notion severely.

Now Google “Nth Country Experiment” and shatter the illusion completely.

Cross-posted at Track-A-’Crat.

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