Deal Baradei

As the communists conflate India’s nuclear imperatives with a moribund world view, the presence of Mohammad ElBaradei in the Capital this week should help calm down the acrimonious debate. India’s current political turbulence is unlikely to prevent ElBaradei from speaking the truth about the nuclear challenges confronting the international community, including the prospect for

India’s long overdue integration into the global nuclear order.

After all, this is not the first time that ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, will be walking into a political minefield. On the eve of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003, he demonstrated rare political courage to challenge the public rationale behind the Bush administration’s misadventure. In the critical testimonies before the United

Nations Security Council during 2002 and 2003, he argued that the available evidence was insufficient to prove that Saddam Hussein was reviving Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme. His assessments provided the basis for the majority of the UNSC to reject the causus belli offered by the United States against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

ElBaradei got into serious trouble for his integrity and professionalism, when the US tried to prevent him from getting a third term at the helm of the IAEA in 2005. Given the widespread support to his candidature for a rare third term as the head of an international agency, the Bush administration had to swallow its pride and allow his unanimous re-election.

More recently, ElBaradei found himself at odds with the US once again when he publicly counselled against imposing new sanctions on Iran and pointed to the prospect of greater cooperation between Tehran and the IAEA. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, responded angrily by saying that the IAEA should not meddle in the ‘business of diplomacy’ and limit itself to technical judgments.

When Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president, talked about going to war to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, ElBaradei dismissed it as just ‘hype’.

Before you jump to the conclusion that ElBaradei is some kind of an ‘anti-imperialist’ crusader and a near victim of US hegemony, think again. In July 2005, when President George W. Bush signed the declaration on the civilian nuclear initiative with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ElBaradei was among the first international leaders to welcome it.

Coming from the very heart of the global non-proliferation system, the IAEA, ElBaradei’s enthusiasm has been critical in mobilising international support for the Indo-US nuclear deal. For ElBaradei, it was not a question being ‘anti’ or ‘pro’ Washington on nuclear issues. As on Iraq and so on India, ElBaradei has chosen to go by the merits of the issue at hand rather than considerations of political correctness of the moment.

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