El Baradei’s first memoir, titled The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times, is a timely reminder of nuclear threats and the world’s perception of how they went awry. Mohamed ElBaradei, who served for 12 years as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), paints an authoritative insider account of the nuclear crises in Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

“We have witnessed aggression where there was no imminent threat (in Iraq); inaction and vacillation while a real threat emerged (in North Korea); and a protracted stalemate fueled by insult and public posturing instead of meaningful dialogue (in the case of Iran),” ElBaradei writes.

“This growing instability means that we are at the twilight of the Third Nuclear Age.”

Iran may be the most significant as current events indictate — in early November the IAEA released a report that may identify a site close to Tehran where nuclear warheads were tested, as well as information regarding the detailed design of Soviet-backed nuclear weapons. The report cites evidence independently corroborated by the IAEA’s on-the-ground inspections — something which ElBaradei has always been in favor of. The author devotes three chapters to Iran regarding this very matter which he stressed during his time in the country from 2006 to 2009 — Iran’s development as a nuclear power could have been halted through diplomacy via the inroads the IAEA had exhaustively made.

Throughout the book, ElBaradei portrays himself as a man aiming to solve the world’s nuclear issues by acting as a statesman in Baghdad, Tehran and Pyongyang — bastions of rogue behavior. For his continued calls for transparency, both the agency and ElBaradei’s work did not go unnoticed, sharing the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. In the Nobel book, inscribed by all the laureates, ElBaradei wrote down his thoughts when addressing the specter of nuclear energy.

“We need to change our mindset,” he wrote. “We need to understand the common values we share. We need to understand that war and force will not resolve our differences or move us forward toward peace. Only through dialogue and mutual respect can we move forward as one human family.”

ElBaradei warns about the growing number of countries in the Middle East that are exploring nuclear options. If things continue to develop in the same vein, he argues, an acceleration of nuclear proliferation worldwide would be inevitable, citing a recent surge in the number of countries in the region exploring nuclear technology.

There are alarming precedents — the destruction of Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, Israel’s bombing of what was thought to be a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 and the 2010 Stuxnet computer virus on Iran’s centrifuges. After these events, all three states reinvigorated their efforts, as they became openly defiant.

“If we do nothing, the change will likely take the form of veritable cascade of proliferation, or worse still, a series of nuclear exchanges.”
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is something that the ex-IAEA chief was always a strong proponent of, but with Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea non-parties to the agreement, deception could ramp up the need for individuals in the same mold as ElBaradei to succeed in nuclear diplomacy.

“We could change course and embrace a different approach [...] a new weapons reduction treaty between the global nuclear giants, to be followed by a forum in which the nuclear-weapon states begin to take responsibility for their need to disarm — these are the pathways could lead us toward a more secure future.” bt

The Age of Deception
Nuclear Diplomacy in
Treacherous Times
Mohamed ElBaradei
340 pages, paperback
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation, 2011
LE 130