Saturday, February 19, 2011

How is this thing unlike the others?

In a lengthy and mostly flattering profile piece on Mohamed ElBaradei, who is keen to lead the next Egyptian government, Reuters correspondent and amnesiac Louis Charbonneau suggests that Western powers do not trust the former IAEA chief due to his attempts to undermine efforts to pressure Iraq and Iran to relinquish their nuclear programs:
But Washington and Tel Aviv are deeply suspicious of the 68-year-old. They along with other allies were frustrated by what they said were blatant attempts by ElBaradei -- who ran the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009 -- to undermine their efforts to ratchet up the pressure on Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion and later on Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program [...]
ElBaradei also has critics in Washington, Israel, London, Berlin and Paris who have not forgotten their frustration at what they describe as his attempts to undermine their drive to ratchet up the pressure on Iran over a nuclear program they fear is intended to develop weapons capability but Tehran says is for peaceful energy purposes only.
Note that whereas Charbonneau specifically refers to the capitals of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Iran, he willfully errs in identifying, and subsequently omits, the capital of Israel: Jerusalem.  This is not the first time Reuters has taken it upon itself to decide the capital city of the Jewish state.

No comments:

Post a Comment