Tuesday, July 06, 2004
And people accuse Bush of being distracted...
According to Reuters, Mohamed El Baradei is trying to get Israel to move off its doctrine of "strategic ambiguity," which is to the nuclear weapons verification world what "don't ask, don't tell" means elsewhere.
Since Israel has had the capacity to turn large parts of the Middle East into smooth, shiny glass since before the October War, and has probably therefore demonstrated more restraint than any other country with nuclear weapons, this would seem to be a huge waste of time (assuming, arguendo, that the time of any United Nations official is an asset worth conserving). Unless El Baradei is a fool -- and there is no non-snarky reason to assume that he is one -- it makes sense to assume that he is putting on a show of pressuring the Israelis to bolster his paper with Islamic tyrants with nuclear ambitions, especially the Iranians. If, however, he thinks that Israel's nuclear weapons are actually worthy of international controls, perhaps the United Nations should put pressure on the Muslim world to give Israel an incentive to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which it has never done for damn good reasons.
U.N. nuclear watchdog head Mohamed ElBaradei hopes to get Israel to begin talks on ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons, whether it admits to having them or not, when he flies to the Jewish state on Tuesday.
Since Israel has had the capacity to turn large parts of the Middle East into smooth, shiny glass since before the October War, and has probably therefore demonstrated more restraint than any other country with nuclear weapons, this would seem to be a huge waste of time (assuming, arguendo, that the time of any United Nations official is an asset worth conserving). Unless El Baradei is a fool -- and there is no non-snarky reason to assume that he is one -- it makes sense to assume that he is putting on a show of pressuring the Israelis to bolster his paper with Islamic tyrants with nuclear ambitions, especially the Iranians. If, however, he thinks that Israel's nuclear weapons are actually worthy of international controls, perhaps the United Nations should put pressure on the Muslim world to give Israel an incentive to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which it has never done for damn good reasons.
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