Why the climb-down on ElBaradei
Tomorrow, when he arrives at the State Department to meet with Condoleezza Rice, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will have lots to talk about, but the key item on the agenda will be his own future.
Until now, the Bush administration has opposed a third term for ElBaradei as director general of the Vienna-based nuclear-watchdog agency. The official U.S. position has been that heads of international organizations like the IAEA should serve no more than two terms. But the real story of U.S. opposition to ElBaradei's staying on reflects the anger of administration hawks toward him for not backing U.S. positions on Iraq and Iran.
The 62-year-old Egyptian diplomat openly disagreed with U.S. claims before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein's government had restarted its nuclear weapons program. After IAEA inspectors visited suspected nuclear sites in Iraq, ElBaradei told the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. assertions were not confirmed.
He also has resisted American pressure to conclude that--in light of past cheating--Iran has been building an infrastructure to make nuclear weapons. Nor did he go along with U.S. demands to shift the Iran issue from the IAEA to the Security Council, which could impose sanctions. And his agency's remarks--just before the U.S. presidential election last November--on high explosives in Iraq missing from an Iraqi arms depot--was seen by some U.S. officials as an effort to harm Bush's re-election chances. Says Joseph Cirincione, director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "Many administration officials saw him as a bumbling Inspector Clouseau or, worse, an apologist."
Nevertheless, it's now clear that the Bush administration campaign to oust ElBaradei has failed. Of 35 nations on the agency's board, exactly one--the U.S.--opposes a third term for ElBaradei. So rather than suffer an embarrassing defeat, the administration is preparing to accept the inevitable. The administration shift is intended to retain influence with ElBaradei and to push him to intensify his probe of Iran's once-secret nuclear work. "You've got to deal with reality. He's the only game in town," reasons a senior State Department official. "We're not going to actively block it [his reappointment]."
The administration's climb-down on ElBaradei pleases European governments, which are seeing in Rice a pragmatic will to close the book on disputes left over from the first Bush term. But Rice is likely to use her conversation with ElBaradei to try to buck him up on Iran and other nuclear challenges.
What does Washington now want from ElBaradei? "Calling a spade a spade, particularly with regard to Iran," says the official, who adds: "Working to resolve problems instead of kicking cans down the road."