The alleged (but rarely proven) sages at the Norwegian Nobel Committee have spoken: ElBaradei and the IAEA have earned the Nobel Peace Prize this year, for incomplete but worthy efforts to prevent proliferation of nuclear arms.
I don't know what to think of this. I don't have a problem with the "incomplete" part - there's ample precedence that the Nobel Committee recognize work in progress. But I am unsure whether the IAEA represents the world's best efforts to prevent proliferation. And it isn't clear to me whether ElBaradei's leadership is particularly noteworthy.
The IAEA apparently does a lot of stuff, but non-proliferation work derives from the non-proliferation treaty, binding upon its signatories. And in this respect it must be said to be failing miserably. It seems that the IAEA does a good job of monitoring countries that are abiding by the treaty but is helpless with countries that intend to, or are, violating it.
This isn't the IAEA's fault, but it's pretty apparent that the organization's charter and workings are part of a big, messy, complex, intractable problem that will in all likelihood only be addressed effectively after nuclear devices are used to kill people.
It is as if the committee looked at the proliferation problem and said "holy shit," and then scrambled to find someone - anyone! - who is working to prevent it. And the best they could do was an ineffectual UN agency burdened by typical UN politics.
Come to think of it, it's rather like the nomination of Harriet Miers as an associate justice to the US Supreme Court. Looks like crap to everyone.
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