Rewarding Appeasement

The Norwegian Nobel Institute bestowed its Peace Prize on Mohammad ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency he leads for their work policing the world's nuclear energy (story).

The IAEA's signature achievement in recent years is to have thoroughly documented two decades of Iranian nuclear cheating and still fail to report it to the UN Security Council, as it is obligated to do under its own charter, deciding that quiet diplomacy is never inapropriate despite two decades' lack of progress.

"The prize recognizes the role of multilateralism in resolving all of the challenges we are facing today," Mr. ElBaradei said, in a thinly-veiled criticism of the United States' "unilateral" war in Iraq which has now claimed the lives of 96 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, two Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 26 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, the Norwegians apparently have never heard of President Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative, a US-led multinational effort to interdict shipments of WMD materiel on the high seas which has already helped stop the flow of weapons technology to North Korea.

The IAEA shares the prize with such luminaries as Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho. By the way, the Nobel Peace prize is given "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." I didn't know that the IAEA was involved in fraternity between nations, reducing armies, or holding peace conferences--probably because it isn't--but as for the reduction of standing armies, the Norwegians might consider rewarding General Tommy Franks and Ambassador Paul Bremer for first detroying and then disbanding the Iraqi army.