The Nobel Prize for Appeasement

And the winner is the International Atomic Energy Agency. Of course the Nobel committee is calling it the Peace Prize nowadays.

Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their drive to curb the spread of atomic weapons by using diplomacy to resolve standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs.

The Nobel Committee's decision lent support to negotiations and inspections, not military action, as the best way to handle volatile nations. It also was seen as a message to the Bush administration, which invaded Iraq after claiming U.N. efforts to eradicate Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions had failed and which opposed ElBaradei's appointment to another term.

The Nobel committee said ElBaradei and the IAEA should be recognized for addressing one of the greatest dangers facing the world.

Gee, that's funny. Last I heard, the IAEA were the one's refusing to recommend Iran to the Security Council. That's where all the binding resolutions get passed, right?--all those diplomatic solutions.

ElBaradei, who was reappointed last month to a third term, has contended with U.S. opposition to his tenure, much of it stemming from Washington's perception he was too soft on Iran for not declaring it in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

That stance blocked a U.S. bid to haul Tehran before the U.N. Security Council, where it could face possible sanctions, for more than two years. The IAEA passed a resolution last month warning Tehran of such referral unless it allayed fears about its nuclear program.

ElBaradei also refused to endorse Washington's contention that Iran was working to make nuclear weapons and disputed U.S. assertions that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq had an active atomic weapons program — both claims that remain unproven, despite growing suspicions about Tehran's nuclear agenda.

He later told the British Broadcasting Corp. he was unfazed by the U.S. opposition.

Well I'm glad to hear he's unfazed. I think Iran feels the same way. Seeing that the international community has no spine, other than blaming the U.S. for taking a stance, Iran pretty much has the run of the field. "Allayed fears" is code for "just tell us you're not building the weapons". I think this has been tried before...some guy named Hitler or something.

Under ElBaradei, the IAEA has risen from a nondescript bureaucracy monitoring nuclear sites worldwide to a pivotal institution at the vortex of efforts to disarm Iran and North Korea.

Austere and methodical, ElBaradei took a strident line as he guided the agency through the most serious troubles it faced since the end of the Cold War.

He accused North Korea, for example, of "nuclear brinkmanship" in December 2002 after it expelled two inspectors monitoring a mothballed nuclear complex. Pyongyang said the plant needed to go back on line because of an electricity shortage.

And I wonder, exactly why are there "serious troubles" in the world? Could it be because these dangers have been gathering for far too long? Could it be because North Korea lied to the Clinton administration about it's nuclear weapons? Could it be because the Mullahs in Iran know that Europe is more interested in Euros than terrorists or the rise of Islamofascism? Could it be because before the U.S. took out Afghanistan and made Pakistan see the error of it's ways, the A.Q. Khan network was churning out nuclear secrets all over the globe?

I have posted previously on the "The Fruits of Appeasement", and in it I quoted from possibly the best history tome there is, A History of the Modern World. Here is that excerpt about the appeasement of Hitler--the most apt description of a problem that plagues us still:

While dictators stormed, the Western democracies were swayed by a profound pacifism, which may be defined as an insistence on peace regardless of consequences. Many people now believed, especially in England and the United States, that the First World War had been a mistake, that little or nothing had been gained by it, that they had been deluded by wartime propaganda, that wars were really started by armaments manufacturers, that Germany had not really caused the war of 1914, that the Treaty of Versailles was too hard on the German's, that vigorous peoples like the Germans and Italians needed room for expansion, that democracy was after all not suited to all nations, that it took two to make a quarrel, and that there need be no war if one side resolutely refused to be provoked--a whole system of pacific and tolerant ideas in which there was perhaps the usual mixture of truth and misunderstanding.

And the longer we keep fooling around, the more our enemies learn how easily the world can be fooled.

Jay Tea at Wizbang has the best take so far on the abyssmal evolution of the Peace Prize:

And the "Peace Prize" has devolved into an almost Orwellian joke. In 1973, it was given to Henry Kissinger. In 1985, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War won it. They gave it to United Nations Peace Keepers in 1988. And the ultimate obscenity was in 1994, when Yassir Arafat, the godfather of modern terrorism, clutched the prize in his blood-stained hands. They tried like hell to beat that accomplishment in 2001, but Kofi Annan and the UN just can't quite match the sheer, horrific, appalling crimes of Arafat.

Yeah, it's really kinda hard to beat Arafat. But they're trying.

Michelle Malkin has a good roundup of reactions, and also agrees with calling it the Appeasement Prize.

And I'm curious...does anyone remember this? The article is old and subscription only, but I've located a small excerpt:

Bush administration officials suspect political motivation behind a letter focused on the disappearance of 377 tons of explosives sent yesterday from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the United Nations Security Council.

The letter, signed by the head of the IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei, addressed the disappearance of the highly explosive material from a deserted military base in Iraq. The non-nuclear explosives had been monitored by the Vienna-based watchdog agency because they could be used to detonate nuclear bombs.

"The timing of this seems puzzling," the spokesman for the American U.N. mission, Richard Grenell, told The New York Sun yesterday.

The letter was brought to the attention of the council on the last full week before the American presidential elections, quickly becaming a campaign issue. It was also a week after Mr. ElBaradei announced that he would seek another term as the director general of IAEA, despite American opposition.

Bush administration officials say their opposition is not personal but in line with their demand to limit the term of the man at the helm of the agency.

"We told ElBaradei that we are not going to support an extension beyond two terms," a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous told the Sun.

Aware of Washington's opposition, Mr. ElBaradei announced last week that he would seek a third term anyway.

The Egyptian-born nuclear inspection veteran clashed with Washington in the run up to the Iraq war, and more recently when his report on Iran's nuclear program seemed too timid to officials, such as the undersecretary of state John Bolton, the Bush administration point man on non-proliferation issues...."

This was the October surprise that Kerry tried to use to put himself over the top--that is after the Fortunate Son campaign, CBS News, Joe Wilson, the Iraq War carping and the tales of the bad economy all went down in flames.

And as I recall, the information on the missing explosives was completely wrong. The 377 tons turned out to be more like 3 tons, and even that number was suspect.

Combine this with John Bolton, now our man at the U.N., then being at the heart of the campaign to deny ElBaradei a third term, and one has to conclude that the Peace Prize is nothing more than yet another award for underhanded anti-American, anti-Bush policy on the international stage.

Unbelievable...the U.S. applauds.

The American Princess had a much better choice in mind than El Baradei.

But, El Baradei is getting the Peace Prize. But, then again, Arafat got it, too. ITs just too bad that its a cash award, otherwise we could steal it and sell it for scrap metal.

Or give it to Bono.

Okay, so I know Bono is a leftist pansy, but he's a leftist pansy with a good heart.

And I suppose that we should be glad it didn't go to another communist. That one was probably worse.

Or Kofi Annan. Or Barbara Streisand.

That's probably next year.

Oh, wait! That's reserved for Kim Jong Il.

Actually, I think they do get a medal along with the cash prize. What? I'm just saying... And she was wondering about scrap metal...