I blogged earlier today about the Ig Nobel prizes, which, in a parody of the Nobel prizes, are designed to "honor" dubious achievements. But there is little need for the Ig Nobels if the Nobel Prizes become a parody of themselves.
While the hard science prizes may be on firm ground, the Peace Prize has sunk into a mire of bitter irony. Some would say its decline began years ago, when it went to that great champion of nonviolence, Yasser Arafat. But while Arafat ultimately remained a corrupt, dissembling terrorist to the end of his days, he had at least, in the Oslo Accords helped achieve a seeming breakthrough in Palestinian relations with Israel. Of course, Arafat would soon violate the accords, but the Nobel judges can almost be forgiven for credulously believing that a dyed-in-the-wool killer like Arafat would change his ways.
The latest Peace Prize laureate, Mohamed ElBaradei (and the International Atomic Energy Agency), is not a bloodthirsty kleptocrat like Arafat. But ElBaradei can't even point to the slender accomplishment of a stillborn diplomatic agreement.
As the head of the UN group foucused on monitoring and curtailing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, ElBaradei has made no tangible difference to the plans of nations like North Korea and Iran, who are suspected to be producing or pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.
The Telegraph rightly says that ElBaradei's prize "rewards failure":
While the hard science prizes may be on firm ground, the Peace Prize has sunk into a mire of bitter irony. Some would say its decline began years ago, when it went to that great champion of nonviolence, Yasser Arafat. But while Arafat ultimately remained a corrupt, dissembling terrorist to the end of his days, he had at least, in the Oslo Accords helped achieve a seeming breakthrough in Palestinian relations with Israel. Of course, Arafat would soon violate the accords, but the Nobel judges can almost be forgiven for credulously believing that a dyed-in-the-wool killer like Arafat would change his ways.
The latest Peace Prize laureate, Mohamed ElBaradei (and the International Atomic Energy Agency), is not a bloodthirsty kleptocrat like Arafat. But ElBaradei can't even point to the slender accomplishment of a stillborn diplomatic agreement.
As the head of the UN group foucused on monitoring and curtailing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, ElBaradei has made no tangible difference to the plans of nations like North Korea and Iran, who are suspected to be producing or pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.
The Telegraph rightly says that ElBaradei's prize "rewards failure":
The joint award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Egyptian director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, is a classic case of wishful thinking.In no other Nobel category could the prize go to someone who accomplished precisely nothing. You can't win for Physics just because you tried — really, really hard, mind you — to achieve cold fusion. Even Literature laureates have to write something. But for the Nobel Peace Prize, it now seems, all that's necessary is for your heart to be in the right place.
...In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and is being enticed back not by the agency, but by a six-nation group under Chinese chairmanship. With Iran, mediation has fallen to the European Union troika of Britain, France and Germany.
The agency has given repeated warnings to Teheran about its nuclear ambitions, but has still to summon up the courage to refer the matter to the Security Council. Last May, the NPT review conference resulted in impasse, and last month the UN General Assembly had nothing to say about non-proliferation and disarmament.
The Council on Foreign Relations describes show how this Administration has undercut the NPT. In short, we have:
• abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, opposed to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and are spending hundreds of billions on a new class of “bunker-buster” nuclear weapons that could involve resumption of testing. This violates the spirit of the NPT, which is based on the agreement of the nuclear states to reduce and eventually eliminate their own nukes, in exchange for the "have-nots" forgoing nukes.
• underfunded the program to increase the safeguards over nuclear weapons based in Russia and other former Soviet states – the likeliest source of nuclear materials.
• distorted intelligence data on Iraq’s nuclear portfolio to justify the invasion of Iraq; we tried to force out ElBaradei when the IAEA showed that Saddam no longer had a nuclear program. When it was clear that ElBaradei was correct and we could find no replacement candidate, we gave up. Based on the Iraq case, North Korea could see that there was no benefit to it remaining subject to the NPT and IAEA inspections.
• treated India and Pakistan leniently despite their weapons programs. Pakistan `s cooperation in the "war on terror" was more important than its export of illicit nuclear technology and know-how to Iran and North Korea. India has also been rewarded and essentially welcomed to the "nuclear club" despite its snubbing of the nonproliferation treaty; for the first time, we are now approving the export of nuclear technology to India.
• stymied a proposal by the IAEA to would freeze the enrichment of uranium until a more suitable inspection regime can be forged.
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