Sunday, December 12, 2004
Hoisting ElBaradei
The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials.
First, let me say how relieved I am that we have been tapping ElBaradei's phone. If we weren't, what the hell do we have sigint and comint for?
The question is, why are "three U.S. government officials" telling the Post that we are trying to push him out? Are the leakers doing the bidding of the White House, or are they trying to whip up a frenzy against
But another official said there is disagreement within the administration, chiefly between Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, who aides say is eager to see ElBaradei go, and outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, over whether it would be worth diverting diplomatic capital that could be better spent on lobbying the board to get tougher with Iran.
Nobody leaks like Colin Powell.
This time, though, I agree with him. As annoying as ElBaradei is, why are we wasting our time trying to get rid of him, especially when we don't even have an alternative that we prefer? Stay on target, boys.
2 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Sun Dec 12, 06:08:00 PM:
Unless, of course, the target is war as quickly as possible in ol' Persia.
I'm guessing the neocon hawks are working on an Iraq-esque timetable. That is, invade with time enough before '08 to ensure the war in Iran can be spun into a victory.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Dec 12, 07:27:00 PM:
Screwy, you're such a cynic. I don't think that war with Iran is in the cards. Or at least not invasion. I think that the game with Iran has to involve a lot of heavy-handed diplomacy, a lot of carrots in addition to sticks, and the constant development of military options of one sort or another. Only with the last can the former succeed.
The key point with Iran is that we probably cannot stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, so we have to do what we can to motivate the government of Iran to become reliable and secure in the possesion of that capability.
