There was a time when I had a lot of admiration for the work of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its Nobel-prize-winning chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, stood up to the Bush administration over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the 2003 invasion in 2003 – and was vindicated by the subsequent, post-war failure to find WMDs in the country. He also had the guts to resist US pressure on Iran; prior to his resignation from the agency in 2009, he bluntly described the threat from a nuclear Iran as “hyped“.
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