Hubris

Charles Johnson noted that while IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei received the Nobel Peace Prize for working against nuclear proliferation, Britain's MI5 has uncovered 360 clandestine nuclear arms organizations -- MI5 Unmasks Covert Arms Programmes:

More than 360 private companies, university departments and government organisations in eight countries, including the Pakistan high commission in London, are identified as having procured goods or technology for use in weapons programmes.
The length of the list, compiled by MI5, suggests that the arms trade supermarket is bigger than has so far been publicly realised. MI5 warns against exports to organisations in Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel, Syria and Egypt and to beware of front companies in the United Arab Emirates, which appears to be a hub for the trade.

Mr. Johnson continued with a London Times piece that highlights the IAEA's failure to abate the proliferation of nuclear weapons materials:

* Before the 1991 Gulf War (before Dr ElBaradei’s appointment), the IAEA failed to detect Saddam’s nuclear programme. After the war, it was startled by the scale of his work to make fissile material.

* Under Dr ElBaradei, the IAEA missed the Libyan nuclear programme, which Libya chose to reveal after the 2003 Iraq war.

* It missed Iran’s 20-year covert nuclear research programme, exposed by Iranian dissidents three years ago.

* It failed to detect the “nuclear supermarket” run by A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold plans and components to Libya, North Korea and Iran.

* It was slow to sound the alarm about North Korea’s conversion of its civil nuclear power into a weapons programme. The US accused North Korea of weapons ambitions in 2002.

Striking a defiant pose in the face of history's plough may be all that's left of the progressive sphere -- or whatever it should be called at this point. I am struck at how the left is betting the farm on an ideology that insists that peacemakers only peddle carrots, having evolved past the need to use the threat of force. It's disheartening to see institutions that are meant to promote and reward progressivism implode into irrelevance, giving themselves mutual pats on the back.

One of President Bush's big mistakes was his famous appearance on an aircraft carrier with the 'Mission Accomplished' banner displayed behind him. Clearly, the mission in Iraq was only then beginning, as we have been seeing since. Much hay has been made of his blunder. Giving accolades and a medal to people like Mohamed ElBaradei in the era of nuclear hyper-proliferation smacks of the same hubris. It shows an imperious pride that presumes much but actually controls little. If it weren't so pathetic and dangerous, it would be comical.