Flashback to #194: Wisdom from our “Secular Pope”

[NOTE: This excerpt appeared more than three years before ElBaradie became a key figure in Egypt's Revolution:]

Ours is a time desperate for cool heads and clear vision, and one man who offers both is Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency since 1997, and winner (with the IAEA) of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

Had the US listened to ElBaradei in March 2003 when he told the U.N. Security Council that his investigations showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program, we would not be at war in Iraq today. And now he’s the only public figure communicating with both the Iranians and the Americans to prevent another nuclear showdown.

The New York Times recently referred to him as a “secular pope,” which TV interviewer Charlie Rose suggested meant “making sure that people don't kill each other.” (The interview transcript is at http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/01/africa/01rose-elb.php?page=5.).Hearing this, ElBaradei acknowledged that, like the Pope, he must rely less on political power and more on moral authority:

"Secular pope" means I have to remind people of the basic principles they subscribe to. You know, I have to remind the weapons states that they committed themselves to move to nuclear disarmament. I have to remind everybody that they committed to resolve issues through peaceful means. I have to remind people that there is an inspection process at work, so we don't go and bomb…

ElBaradei hopes that in his lifetime he will see nuclear weapons become a historical taboo like genocide and slavery. But this man is experienced and wise enough to know that, more than 60 years after Hiroshima and 45 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have still not come to terms with the basic moral dilemma of nuclear weapons:

We still continue to live in a world where people see that having nuclear weapons is a means of power, of prestige and of a shield. If you really want to protect yourself, you know, you should have nuclear weapons.

The whole system, the so-called arms-control system, is based on those who do not have weapons should not have weapons, but the weapons states should move into nuclear disarmament…But as long as we continue to say, "well, nuclear weapons are very important for our security, but you cannot have it," that system is not sustainable in the long run.

So I think the US, Russia, everybody, all the weapons states, will have much stronger moral authority if they show -- if they say, "We are moving into that direction. We don't need to rely on nuclear weapons."


ElBaradei is absolutely right to place the moral burden on the Weapons States. For they are the founders and sustainers of a double standard that hypocritically reserves the supposed “benefits” of nuclear weapons to themselves while denying them to others—and even threatening war on those who seek them. The envy and resentment this creates is, all by itself, a grave obstacle to global peace. And no one can remove that obstacle but the Weapons States who invented it.