Over the years, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has not been especially effective in stifling would-be nuclear proliferators. First, there was his adamant opposition to the war in Iraq — although Iraq’s history of concealment of WMD programs in the 1980s, its cat-and-mouse games with IAEA inspectors in the 90s, and its foreclosing of inspections between 1998 and 2002 might have counseled more circumspection. Then there was the embarrassing discovery of Libya’s nuclear program, which was surrendered to the U.S. by Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, not on account of the IAEA’s work, but out of Qaddafi’s fear that he could end up like his chum Saddam and out of his desire to see economic sanctions lifted. ElBaradei’s successor, the current Japanese rep to the IAEA Ambassador Yukiya Amano, is due to take office officially in December, and he will inherit three tricky files, Syria, Iran, and North Korea.
This past Friday, ElBaradei delivered what could be his last IAEA report on Iran before leaving the agency. It notes that Iran is stalling on critical and sensitive aspects of its military nuclear program, but at the same time much of the emphasis is on Iran’s recent (and belated and limited) compliance on a number of issues. The report hints at some important and potentially damning things about the military dimensions of Iran’s program, but then it goes on to shift focus and put the burden of proof on countries that have supplied critical intelligence to the agency. This last touch is somewhat ironic, given that Western governments have been pressing the agency to make its information public. As the New York Times put it last week.
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