Don't Read This Post and Drink at Same Time

International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei, who was in Oslo to pick up a Nobel Prize for peace on behalf of the IAEA said that

"The hard part is how do we create an environment in which nuclear weapons -- like slavery or genocide -- are regarded as a taboo and a historical anomaly?"

I nearly spit coffee on my computer monitor when I read that.

Is he kidding me? Slavery is still persistent - throughout the Arab world - Sudan in particular. Genocide? Ditto. The world doesn't lift a finger to stop genocide, except when it's over to issue condemnations that the US didn't do enough. Meanwhile, how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have been slaughtered by totalitarian dictatorships, tribal opposition, or dictators hell bent on imposing their will on regions from the Middle East to the Korean peninsula.

Neither slavery or genocide is a taboo. And then we get to the crux of the matter - nuclear proliferation. What has happened on ElBaredi's watch? Lots of nuclear proliferation. Iran. Pakistan. North Korea. Libya. All went ahead and developed nuclear technologies without the IAEA knowing until it was too late. In Libya's case, they gave up the goods to the US to avoid dealing with the consequences of having to face the US.

The IAEA is toothless, and everyone knows it. The PSI, which is backed by the US, was more successful. In fact, it was the PSI that got Libya to give up its nuclear program, not the IAEA.

The IAEA consistently looks the other way on Iran and North Korea, and refuses to clamp down on those that proliferate the nuclear technologies - North Korea through selling missile technologies, Pakistan's AH Khan network that provided the technical know-how, and those that are actually seeking the nuclear genie, like Iran.

Negotiations will not solve this problem because the Iranians are just like the North Koreans, except their fanaticism is religiously driven. The Iranians will say and do anything to obtain a nuclear weapon, including lying about their intentions. They already have missile technology capable of delivering a payload into the heart of Europe - or anywhere else in the Middle East or South Asia. They can just as easily go after Saudi Arabia as Israel. And the Iranian leadership is willing to go that extra step to get the bomb. Because they know that the IAEA is toothless and can't do anything to stop a country determined to acquire nuclear weapons.

Which makes the IAEA receipt of the Nobel Prize an example of tragicomedy. If it weren't such a tragedy, it would be funny.