YOU cannot fault Mohamed ElBaradei for caring about world peace, at least. The winner of this yearâs Nobel Peace Prize, who runs the United Nationâs nuclear watchdog, is full of dreams of beating the threat of proliferation â and getting the worldâs nuclear powers to give up their weapons too. Yesterday, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, he laid out his answer.He is right, in theory. But the plan (which he has been pushing for some years) is so divorced from reality that it is hard to take seriously. His speech, entitled Reflections, was like a 45-minute rendition of John Lennonâs Imagine, albeit one written by a UN bureaucrat.
There was a hard kernel to his talk â which itself raises questions about his realism. As director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), his most urgent task is to determine whether Iranâs nuclear work is a front for getting weapons, as the US believes. There are âstill important pieces missingâ in Iranâs account, he said. But he added: âYou cannot continue [investigations] for ever. I would hope within a year we should be able to come to a conclusion [about the scope of Iranâs work].â
Why a year? And even if so, why tell Iran now? The new hardline Iranian Government has done nothing but ramp up the rhetoric against the West. It has also restarted preparation of uranium at one facility.
True, in recent weeks it has hinted that it might talk again to Britain, France and Germany. It might consider Russiaâs offer to supply it with nuclear fuel, and to take away spent fuel. That would allay concerns about Iran mastering the technology of uranium enrichment or of reprocessing fuel, which could enable it to make bombs. But Iranâs gesture hardly answers the worries. It seems self-defeating for Dr ElBaradei to suggest ending an inquiry, with such good reason still to suspect Iran of wanting weapons.
The Iran case illustrates the weaknesses of Dr ElBaradeiâs big idea: creating an international facility for enriching uranium. That would allow any country that wanted nuclear power to acquire fuel, but would stop them mastering weapons technology. That is fine, in theory. It is convenient for Dr ElBaradei, as it happens, because it squares the two notoriously ill-fitting parts of the IAEAâs remit: to promote the spread of civil nuclear power, and to inhibit the spread of weapons.
But who would own this site and where would it be? The big drawback is that no declared nuclear power is treating the notion as practical: not Britain, the US, France, China, and probably not Russia. Although Russia has been encouraging to Dr ElBaradei, he says, its motivation is clear: to explore any chance of selling fuel. But in the one practical test that presents itself to Iran, Russia is offering a simple bilateral deal, as it wants to court Tehran. There is nothing âmultilateralâ about that.
Dr ElBaradei says Russiaâs offer to Iran, if accepted, could be âtransitionalâ on the way to his grand multilateral dream. But there seemed little enthusiasm for his ideas at the UNâs review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty this summer, which ended in disarray.
Dr ElBaradei, who calls himself âa realistic personâ, said that his ideas had been prompted by the worldâs âdismalâ record in stopping proliferation. But he threw into his wishlist other huge dreams, including one for a âuniversalâ programme of disarmament. The nuclear weapons statesâ failure to shed weapons was ânot only baffling but absolutely unacceptableâ. His remarks yesterday also blamed poverty and the âhuge and widening gap in living conditionsâ for the growing threat to international security.
This speech was the work of a man who has spent a long time in a job that demands an awkward straddle over two conflicting briefs. He is just beginning his third four-year term, and clearly wants now to relay a more ambitious vision as well. His ideas are infused with the spirit of the UNâs early days, when the world warmed to huge pacts. But, until he can demonstrate government support, it is a song that gains little from repetition.