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States for offering direct dialogue with North Korea while refusing talks with Iran “without preconditions.”
He goes on to say that Washington does not seem to understand the actual causes of proliferation, which he writes “were rooted much deeper, in the extreme economic and social inequalities that prevailed between North and South . . . and the conflicts and tensions that continued to fester in specific regions.” Those tensions certainly lead to proliferation, but “economic and social inequalities” have no detectable bearing on why Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Iran, Syria and Israel have pursued nuclear programs.
ElBaradei passionately advocates making diplomacy the main recourse in counterproliferation — and he’s right to do so. But when he argues that “the increasing distrust between different cultures” form the barrier to “an enduring and collective security” he’s on shaky ground.
His credo is diplomacy above all else, for however long it takes and whatever the risk that nuclear weapons will be built in the meantime. He exhibits more sympathy for non-Western proliferators and their needs than for the major powers and their security and political concerns. At times, his narrative comes close to condoning the motives of states that seek nuclear weapons. “Iran’s goal is not to become another North Korea — a nuclear weapons possessor but a pariah in the international community — but rather Brazil or Japan, a technological powerhouse with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons if the political winds were to shift, while remaining a nonnuclear weapons state,” he writes. As for Iran’s concealing its nuclear program at Natanz, he says Iran “was not intending to ‘hide’ it per se.”
And he adds his voice to those who contend that the fight against proliferation can’t succeed unless the established nuclear powers (above all, America and Russia) reduce their stockpiles and move

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