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welcome to inside the new york times book review i am Sam House. Former times op ed columnist
leslie gelb
discusses the new book
by Mohammed ELBARADEI,
"The only way he had a chance to successfully doing
with proliferation over the long run is
through diplomacy
his watchword is ever diplomacy and more diplomacy
and Jennifer chancellor
has bestseller lists
Mohammed ELBARADEI within the news not long ago when he emerged as one of the faces
and voices
of the revolution in Egypt but he's also had a long and very different kind of public
career
but he describes in his new book the age of deception
nuclear diplomacy and treacherous times its review for us by the very distinguished, Leslie
hdl president emeritus of the council on foreign relations
foreign policy official columnist for the new york times and foreign correspondent one
of the great figures in foreign policy and i'm delighted that less is here to talk about
the book, welcome. "could be anything"
all right well ELBARADEI,
Who is he ?
he is an international civil servant
who rose to public
international prominence
when the board of governors of the nobel peace prize
awarded him one of those things
for his great work
encountering the proliferation of nuclear weapons
and
that is the subject of his book it's not about
the democratic uprising in the middle east for those who wonder is really about his long
careers quite
meticulously told about his efforts and others to stop nuclear
a proliferation
what is his argument, but basically argues three things
first of all that
the organization best position
to deal with deliberation is the international atomic energy
agency
uh... offshoot kind of the united nations
and charged onto the non-proliferation treaty
to do the inspections in
make sure that nations are keeping their obligations under that tree
not to acquire development acquire nuclear weapons
that's gotta be strengthened point one
point two the effort
to prevent proliferation is constantly getting mugged op
by two major powers in the world
mainly
the united states of america
and third
but the only way
he had a chance to successfully doing
with proliferation over the long run
is through diplomacy
his watchword is ever diplomacy and more diplomacy, now less
our listeners will remember those
tens weeks and months before the invasion of iraq
when the issue was gone
of weapons of mass destruction and if Saddam Hussein happen
Is ELBARADEI involved at all of those weapons inspections?, the very much though as a member
of team member
of the international atomic energy agency
he wasn't the inspector who the other people
involved in that
uh... but he was intimately involved in what was going on
and the IAEA
his agency there
conducted from 2002
to 2003 before the war began
two hundred ten-fifty inspections
about a hundred and fifty sites and found nothing
but the united states refused to believe
that there was nothing there
uh... d
bush administration believed
that the IAEA
was conducting the investigations inspections
incompetently and, what about ELBARADEI have to say about the bush administration?
maybe that is
the real thing of the book
he's got a lot of other points
based on his long experience
but his
strongest feelings his emotions
there we go back to those days dealing with the
bush administration over iraq
because he
he felt
and feels at the time of the writing of this book that the
bush administration was held going to war with Iraq
whatever the evidence was about whether not they were proliferating
and he really blames
the
bush administration in the united states
for that war
for the whole disruption
uh... in the middle east
and for the arousal of the muslim world, Is he critical of
the other great powers such as they are China, soviet union, great britain?
he doesn't really criticized China and the soviet union very much at all
even though they weren't, whatever he would call them great supporters
of the IAEA 0:05:03.130,0:05:04.729but they didn't really
metal
him the most serious cases of proliferation and more is stay out of it
and were actually played generally supportive of efforts to
maintain the nonproliferation regime
but never
to the point of really squeezing
the proliferated
or threatening that country
with force
what does he say about Iran? well Iran is the
i guess the key part of the
diplomacy story
because that's the
the war
on the verge of happening as far as the ELBARADEI
is concerned
he feels
that Iran
is not nearly as guilty as the united states says
I guess you could read his book different ways but i read him to stay
that we have greatly exaggerated
the nuclear threat from iran
in fact he says you know they've really rather be japan or brazil
the great technological power
but not a nuclear weapons state that's all i really want it
and that they would never actually hiding
or there
but i consider secret nuclear programs though never actually hiding them per se is his word
so
So, Is there an ideology here?
Does ELBARADEI represent a certain
position
on these great questions of disarmament, the relationship between great powers
and small powers, or just his point of view, he represents more than himself here, i think
most leaders end up in the developing world and many
in western europe in the united states
kind of look at the situation the way he does
what he's saying is
at the united states dominates the strain
dominates the bulk of the day
and that would we're doing it helter skelter to suit up own narrow interests and not the
interest of world peace in the prevention of nuclear proliferation
that we handle every case so differently just to suite ourselves
for example
he says well the united states
mate who
deals
with north korea
the country that was
actually developing nuclear weapons beyond any shadow of a doubt
the clinton administration made a deal with them
the bush administration
made a deal with north korea and they started those negotiations in both cases
without any preconditions whats so ever
and
north korea actually went ahead and develop nuclear weapons they have them today
And they denying all nuclear inspections
and yet you know we're prepared to deal with them
ELBARADEI says
if united states did that with north korea
potentially more dangerous state
than iran, why doesn't do the same with the iran??!
why doesn't have negotiations
without preconditions
with the
hummed
why is it singling them out
and why did it gives special treatment to israel?
United States never makes mention of israel
israel's nuclear weapon state
united states never made a major issue
of india developing nuclear weapons or pakistan
in fact
we uh... major trader with india and major providor of aid to pakistan
so why single Iran
he comes back to that point
again and again, now is any of this changing under the carter administration during that
campaign in 2008 there was a great deal of controversy
when then candidate Barack Obama said that he would
consider
talks with Iran that did not have preconditions or is he now adopted a stand closer to
his predecessor
he is somewhere in between his campaign rhetoric which had this open-ended promise of
trying to work things out with the Iranians
uh... and the bush administration's position of
the iranians having to make major concession even before sit down at the table with them
ELBARADEI was much in the news became
to some people almost the faces of the insurrection and in cairo, Does you really have a major
political future in egypt if
far you can tell and is this book addresses that anyway
i think only nuclear
foreign policy wonks like myself do about ELBARADEI
before the uprising in cairo
and then when he
ran into that situation
declared himself a possible presidential candidate to replace Mubarek, he became a well figure
uh... is writing this book going to help hem get elected?
i doubt that uh... many of the
the people who moved into the
Tahrir square will bother to read the english or the arabic version of of this
book it's meant for wonks
uh... but it did give him a kind of cash eh
as an international figure
but i don't think it will be nearly enough to
uh... raise him for the presidency the Egypt
at the September elections thanks so much less
you're very welcome
that's leslie gelb who reviews the aged deception nuclear diplomacy in treacherous times by
Mohammed ELBARADEI in this week's book review